


Comfort that which I've brought to ashes

by Lindstrom



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: AU - No Powers, Angst, Asexual Nile Freeman, Booker teases Joe about being Muslim, Booker teases Joe about being gay, Coming out as an adult, Daddy Issues, Family Angst, Firefighter Joe, First Kiss, First Time, Hurt/Comfort, Joe Needs a Hug, Joe and Nicky try Dom/sub roleplay in one scene but it’s not really their thing, Joe gets a hug, Joe is in the closet, Joe's blue shirt, Joe’s POV, Joe’s family is not accepting of homosexuality, Keane is a bully, M/M, Nicky is perceptive, Nicky used to be a Catholic priest, Nicky wears a leather loincloth and collar in one scene, Nicky’s family is not accepting of homosexuality (offscreen), Paramedic Nicky, Rescue, author did actual paramedic research meaning I read a book, background andy/quynh, excessive condom use, firefighters rescuing people, grief and sadness, handjobs, little kid fire station field trip, major fire peril, mild medical peril, nobody dies not even the cockatiel, one homophobic remark by a little kid, peace and acceptance, the bad guys aren’t nearly as evil as they are in canon, the dog is fine too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-14 22:42:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 36,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29053812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lindstrom/pseuds/Lindstrom
Summary: Joe is barely coming to terms with being gay when Keane’s clash with the new medic shoves him into a situation he’s not ready for. Nicky is everything Joe could ever want, if only he can get past his own hangups and claim the life and happiness that still seem just out of his reach. (Yeah, this is definitely a romance, though I threw in some medical drama so Nicky can be hot and competent, and then trapped Joe in a burning building during a dramatic rescue so the plot wouldn’t drag.)
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 23
Kudos: 107
Collections: The Old Guard Big Bang





	Comfort that which I've brought to ashes

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is for all the people who stay closeted (for whatever reason) well into adulthood. There is rightfully a lot of focus and help on teenagers who are coming to terms with their sexuality and may not be in a supportive environment to come out. But coming out in your mid-thirties has its own set of difficulties. If you’ve spent your adult years trying to be someone you’re not, there’s a certain level of pain and fear that goes into letting go of the facade and then learning to walk a path you never thought you could navigate.  
> \--------  
> The paramedic stories are taken from the memoir “A Thousand Naked Strangers: A Paramedic’s Wild Ride to the Edge and Back” by Kevin Hazzard.  
> \--------  
> The title is from these verses which [therogueheart](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/therogueheart) generously let me use:
> 
> In your love I burn willingly, soothed by your kiss.  
> Confide in me your suffering, and in the flames I shall burn it to ash.  
> This shared vow, yours and mine, to keep safe and protect.  
> Healing touch, comfort that which I've brought to ashes.
> 
> \----------  
> The artwork is by [thatmartiangirl.](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/thatmartiangirl)

The problem with being the exuberant, cheerful, life of the party is that people came to expect that, and so even when Joe was in a blue mood, he would pretend to be happy so as not to disappoint people. No, he didn’t want to get together and play soccer with the team this weekend; he wanted to stay home and mope with vast quantities of ice cream and pastry.

“Sure I’ll be there! Let’s wipe the field with their sorry asses! Who are we playing?” Joe said, slamming his locker because Booker slapped him on the back hard enough to make him lose his balance and falling into his locker was the best way to avoid falling on his face.

“I knew you’d save our bacon!” Booker said, “figuratively speaking, of course, don’t eat bacon, Joe.”

Joe laughed and bobbed his head like he didn’t mind being teased about not eating pork. Booker also teased a Mormon in admin about not drinking coffee. He just had one of those senses of humor and if you laughed, you avoided the accusation that you were being too sensitive.

“We’re playing the Goon Squad. I’ve been telling them we’d kill them on a rematch,” Booker went on.

“Great, yeah, the Goon Squad,” Joe said, his smile going a little more plastic. These inter-station sports rivalries were supposed to be friendly, non-competitive, a chance to bond with other firefighters. The Goon Squad figured as long as the ambulance crews came too, they may as well put them to good use.

“Medic! Where’s our medics!” Jay hollered, hanging onto the door frame to stop herself.

“Nicky and Nile? They’re in the ambulance bay. What’s up?” Booker asked.

“Lykon!” Jay shouted, already on her way to the ambulance bay.

Joe beat Booker to the fishbowl up front where Lykon worked. He was sitting on the floor, with an oxygen line wrapped around his head and Keane getting an IV into his arm. 

“Take another puff,” Merrick was telling him, urging the hand with the asthma inhaler back up to his face. 

Joe knelt down. “Do you have asthma, Lykon?”

Lykon gave him a terrified look and shook his head. He was a slender, efficient young man who ran all the admin for the fire station while working his way through college at night. Andy adored him, as did Joe. The youngster was all cheer and optimism and sometimes Joe volunteered to do paperwork just because it meant hanging out with Lykon.

“I’m giving you a corticosteroid, Lykon,” Keane said, hooking up the vial of medication. “You should feel better shortly.”

A hand reached past Joe and simply took the vial out of Keane’s hand. 

“No steroids. Move out of the way please.” 

It was Nicky’s voice, overly enunciated so no one could say they didn’t understand him because of his accent. Nicky and Nile had joined the fire department as an EMT team about two months ago. Joe hadn’t really gotten to know them. Nicky was so quiet that nobody really knew him. He knew Dizzy and Jay hung out with Nile a lot. They seemed like they knew what they were doing, and Nicky just proved he had brass balls. He may be quiet, but nobody timid would tell Keane to stop doing anything.

Joe stood up and stepped back, as requested. Nicky wormed his way into the cubicle, crowded with a chair, Lykon and three other people. Joe hadn’t noticed before just how big Nicky was. Somehow, he thought of quiet people as small. Nicky was almost as tall as he was, and maybe a bit broader through the shoulders. He had good muscle definition in his forearms, and Joe could see his thigh muscles flex in his blue uniform pants as he crouched down to put himself between Keane and Lykon, pulling on a pair of latex gloves and then deftly slipping the IV needle out of Lykon’s arm. Joe realized he was staring at Nicky’s thighs and self-consciously looked away.

“He’s having trouble breathing! You get steroids for that!” Keane said angrily.

“Nicky, we had the situation in hand. You’re supposed to assess the scene before just moving in like that,” Merrick said in his pronouncements-from-on-high voice. He had a tendency to bust out Shakespeare quotes without warning as well.

All the firefighters had EMT training, though they didn’t use it a dozen times a day like the medics did. Merrick was right - it did look like Nicky barged in and took over when he should have waited to see if the people already on the scene needed help.

Nile unwrapped the oxygen line from Lykon’s head, also putting herself physically between Lykon and Keane, elbowing Merrick out of the way.

Nicky looked up, as if noticing Keane and Merrick for the first time. He stared at them blankly for a second, as if trying to figure out what was going on and what he should do about it, then looked around until his gaze fell on Joe. “Get them out of here, please.” He turned back to Lykon.

That might have been the first sentence Nicky had spoken to him since saying, “Nice to meet you” two months earlier. He wasn’t sure why he immediately wanted to do whatever Nicky asked him to do, but he did.

“They’re the experts,” Joe said to Merrick. “Let me give you a hand up.”

Merrick looked at Joe’s outstretched hand and then pointedly stood up without taking it. “They’re violating scene protocol. We were here; we were treating the patient; cutting in like that is dangerous.”

True. Besides, Merrick and Keane were firefighters too, and he should side with them against a couple of medics. But something in Nicky’s matter-of-fact request caught him out around the fake cheer he’d been trying to keep up all week and he didn’t want to side with them. Nicky rested fingers on Lykon’s wrist, taking his pulse, while Nile pressed a stethoscope to his back. Honestly, they seemed much more calm and competent than the bluster and panic of Keane’s IV needle and Merrick’s inhaler and oxygen line.

“Let’s leave them to it and we can talk it out later,” Joe suggested. Joe was a middle child of five, and the dynamic of trying to make peace between his two older and more belligerent brothers, and his younger brother and sister, snapped into place without conscious thought. Joe’s job was to get Merrick and Keane to back off.

“Let’s get him transported,” Keane said, hanging over the desk since he’d been edged out of the cubicle. “Nile, go get the stretcher.”

Nile looked up with an ‘are you shitting me?’ look in her eye and then went back to whatever she was doing.

“He doesn’t need to be transported. Please. Give us twenty minutes. Joe, please get them out of here,” Nicky said again in that quiet voice.

“Really?” Keane demanded. “You’re telling Joe to give orders to the engineer and the lieutenant?”

Technically, yeah, Joe wasn’t going to give orders to the station engineer and the lieutenant. But middle children don’t need to give orders to get what they want. The word Joe learned in fourth grade was ‘cajole’ and he’s good at it. “Not orders, Keane. Let’s let them do what they do and deal with it later. Lykon seems to be doing better. We can talk this out in the break room. Did Booker tell you about our soccer match this weekend?”

Booker could recognize a cue. He’d hung back out of the way, but he stepped in when Joe caught his eye and started talking about soccer. 

Keane interrupted him. “No, you don’t get to do that thing you do where you bat those big brown eyes at me and ignore protocol.”

Terror rocketed from the top of Joe’s head and out his toes. He did _not_ flirt with Keane after the Old Highway Road call. Smiling while laughing was _not_ flirting and even if he was going to flirt, it wouldn’t be with Keane, and he really needed Booker to not pick up on this because he couldn’t stand to be teased about it. 

Keane rounded on Nicky and Nile. “I said let’s get him transported! Nile, call the ER and tell them we’re bringing in a man with breathing problems.”

Nicky and Nile exchanged a look and then Nicky stood up. “No.”

Keane stared at him, waiting for the rest of it.

Joe filed that away as an argument tactic. Just say one word and then shut up. He’d never tried that before. When he got scared, he babbled. Nicky was scared - Joe could see the muscle in his cheek twitch, and those huge blue eyes were fixed on Keane’s face, almost rictus-like. Keane was big and angry and could probably get Nicky fired if he put his mind to it.

It was the thought that Nicky could get fired that propelled Joe back into the middle of it. “He’s doing fine, Keane, look at him.” Joe gestured to where Lykon was talking with Nile, no breathing problems at all.

“I told you to stay out of it,” Keane growled at him. “Your boyfriend can answer for himself.”

Joe felt that jolt of terror again. Why would Keane say that? He’d never even spoken to Nicky since he started working here. Could Keane tell he was gay? Joe had barely admitted to himself that he was gay. How did people just know that? This couldn’t happen right now. Joe couldn’t deal with it. He shot a look of panicked apology at Nicky and hung on to the mixture of surprise and kindness he saw in his eyes. Oh fuck, did Nicky think Joe had an unrequited crush on him? Could this possibly get any worse?

“Boyfriend! That’s a good one,” Booker said with a chuckle.

Yep. Worse. Right there.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Joe said weakly. 

“Lykon was hyperventilating with an anxiety attack. He doesn’t have asthma. He just needed to calm down. Giving him albuterol and corticosteroids is how you treat asthma, but those things make an anxiety attack worse. He’s calm now; he doesn’t need to go to the hospital,” Nicky said into the silence of Joe’s terror.

All of them turned to look at Lykon, who laughed shakily at something Nile said. Nile and Nicky lived together; that was the fire station gossip. He was very happy that Nicky had such a good woman in his life, and hoped with all his heart that Nicky wouldn’t hold it against him that Keane had called him Joe’s boyfriend. He would have to talk to Nicky later and make sure that he didn’t think Joe wanted him as a boyfriend. Though honestly, if he had a boyfriend who looked like that, with the balls to stand up to Keane, he just might risk the wrath of his father and brothers and tell them he was gay. 

“I’m fine now,” Lykon called out, and waved. He still looked jittery. If Andy was here, she would tell him to take the rest of the day off. Andy wasn’t here. That left Joe. And if Nicky could stand up to Keane, then Joe could say something too.

“Why don’t you take the rest of the afternoon off? Relax and unwind a bit,” Joe suggested. 

“That’s a good idea,” Nicky said, nodding.

The thrill of pleasure at Nicky’s approval was slightly ridiculous, but still enjoyable. They exchanged a smile, which was also ridiculously meaningful to Joe and made him shake his head and look away so he wouldn’t look too long into those kind eyes.

Keane and Merrick grumbled a bit more, but in the end, Lykon went home for the afternoon and the rest of them dispersed back to their duties. Joe managed to dodge Booker and so escaped any teasing.

It was a slow day. Nicky and Nile went out on a couple of calls, but nothing that required fire dispatch. Joe needed a few minutes alone, so he headed to the storeroom where he kept his prayer rug. Lykon was the only other person who ever went into the storeroom; with him gone for the afternoon, Joe could avoid everyone. He pulled his rug out of the cabinet and spread it out on the floor, moving slowly and deliberately, taking the time to calm himself before performing a raka’ah. He’d already prayed today, but this could make up for all the other days when he missed prayers. 

The words and familiar movements helped, but he still didn’t feel ready to paste his smile on and go back out. Being alone meant being able to drop his cheery facade, which was a relief. Life just felt heavy so often now, and Joe didn’t know how to shake it. Staying busy muffled his moods, and staring at the storeroom wall wasn’t helping him feel better. He needed to get up and do something, and instead he stayed on his knees.

When the door opened, he jumped to his feet, rolling up his rug quickly.

“I’m sorry,” Nicky said. “I didn’t know anyone was in here.”

“No need to apologize. You just startled me is all,” Joe said with a laugh, and pasted back on his smile. He stuffed his rug back into the cabinet, fairly sure Nicky had no idea what Joe was doing and not wanting to explain it.

“I need more pens. We throw away the pens after a patient we’re transporting uses them rather than sterilizing them,” Nicky explained.

The two of them stood there in the harsh glare of the fluorescent lighting, surrounded by cheap metal shelving and stacks of post-it notes and printer paper and discussed office supplies for several minutes. It was a ridiculous conversation and Joe never wanted it to end. Who knew that ‘printer cartridges’ sounded so exotic when said with an Italian accent?

After a few minutes, Joe reminded himself that he actually did have something he needed to say to Nicky. He laughed nervously. “What Keane said about you being my boyfriend, you know, I just didn’t want you to think, you know, that I’d said something or whatever.”

Nicky had a barely there smile that made Joe want to stare at him to make sure he was really seeing a smile. “That’s too bad. I hoped you had said something.”

If Nicky had hit him in the back of the head with a ream of paper, he wouldn’t have been any more flummoxed. Wasn’t he in a relationship with Nile? Apparently not? “What?”

“I’ll make this easy for you. If you ask me out, I’ll say yes.” Nicky’s barely-there smile was a little more pronounced now.

Joe stared at him, dumbfounded. “How can you tell I’m gay?”

Nicky stared right back. “Dio, you’re not out, are you?”

“What did I do?” Joe demanded in desperation. Wasn’t he hiding it well enough? He was straight-passing, wasn’t he? Did his father already know? Did his brothers? Did his mom know? Maybe his entire family knew. Maybe his imam knew. Maybe everyone at his mosque knew. Maybe he was walking around with a huge ‘I’m gay’ sign stuck to his back and everyone knew. Is that why people had quit asking him when he was going to get married? No one had tried to line him up with a cousin or sister in years now.

Nicky opened his mouth to say something, shut it, and shook his head. “Gaydar, I guess.”

That wasn’t reassuring. Keane thought he was gay too. Booker would start teasing him about it and then everyone at the station would know. He should quit and move to another country. 

Allah intervened and set off Nicky’s pager, which sent him running for the ambulance bay without another word. 

Flustered, Joe spent a few minutes straightening up boxes of post-it notes before he forced himself to go back out. 

* * *

“The most important thing to remember, team, is if any of you let yourself get fouled badly enough that you go on the sick list, I’ll break your other leg myself,” Andy said. “Newbies, what position do you play?”

“Midfield or forward,” Nile said.

“Forward,” Nicky said.

“Merrick, you’re on defense this game. I want to see how Nicky does at forward. Nile, you take midfield with Joe and Booker. Keane, if you get called for offsides more than twice, you work the next two Saturday night shifts,” Andy said.

The Old Guard took the field, facing off against the Goon Squad. Joe motioned for Nile to take the center midfield position so he was as far away from Booker as he could get. He put himself behind Nicky. Keane and Bridger were the other two playing forward.

No one had told Andy what had happened the other morning when Nicky basically told Keane that he’d fucked up treating Lykon. In the common room on Thursday, Joe had walked in and felt the tension in the atmosphere press on him. Nicky and Keane were the only two in there, and Keane was standing way too close to Nicky, who was backed up against the table to the point that he was basically sitting on it. Joe rattled around in the fridge getting his lunch and Nicky took advantage of the distraction to eel out from around Keane and leave without even looking at Joe. Keane gave Joe the side-eye, but didn’t say anything and Joe didn’t ask. The memory of Keane accusing him of batting his eyes shut his mouth, rather than trying to say something to defuse the tension. He just microwaved his spaghetti and watched the tennis match on the tv with single minded determination.

The Goon Squad scored the first two goals, blowing past Lykon and Jay on defense about half a dozen times. Dizzy blocked most of the shots, but one went in over her head and the other one she just plain missed. This playing pattern was pretty standard for their team - the other team got a couple of easy goals in and then the Old Guard stepped it up to tie the game and then it was anyone’s guess who would win.

For as intense as Andy was, she was a pretty laid back coach. Joe suspected she liked having the other team underestimate them. A come-from-behind win had a more satisfying emotional punch than holding a lead the entire game.

In the second quarter, Joe got to watch Nicky in action. Lykon sent the ball up the field; Joe caught it, set up the pass and kicked it to Nicky. Nicky dribbled a bit, looking around the field while the Goon Squad converged on him, then passed it towards Bridger. The Goon Squad stole it, and Joe dropped back to help on defense. Nicky was decent - not on fire as a player, but these games were supposed to just be fun.

In the second half, the Old Guard started playing more aggressively and Joe got to watch Nicky more often. He was a solid passer. His ball handling was good but not outstanding. The Goon Squad stole the ball from him a few times before he could pass it. He wasn’t afraid of the tussle and he followed up a pass, usually managing to set himself up for a return pass that he never got.

After watching Nicky get himself open for a pass, again, and then watching Keane ignore him and take the shot and miss it, again, Joe decided to go forward and try a play with Nicky. He passed it to Nicky, checked offsides, got open, caught the pass from Nicky, dribbled a few seconds, and then sent it right back to Nicky. The Goon Squad, who were double-teaming Keane, had no one on Nicky and he scored easily.

Joe and Nicky high-fived. They probably wouldn’t be able to catch the Goon Squad unawares like that again, but scoring the first goal of the game felt good. Nicky sending a grin in his direction also felt good. Surprisingly, they scored a second goal that way before the Goon Squad quit double-teaming Keane and set someone on Nicky. 

Nicky turned to find Joe once he realized he had a defender on him and grinned at him as if to say this would be even more fun now. Joe went with it and got himself forward with the ball, ignored Keane’s shout that he was open and passed it to Nicky, who was also open but not shouting about it. 

The next instant, Nicky was on the ground with his hands clasped around his ankle. He rolled once and then bounced to his feet. Joe hadn’t seen what actually happened, but the Goon Squad was famous for kicking a player right at the edge of the shin guard. It wasn’t usually called as a foul because it looked like they were just scrambling for control of the ball. You had to play the Goon Squad fairly often to notice the pattern, and Joe would bet that no one had thought to warn Nicky. He certainly hadn’t.

The ball was on the other side of the field with Bridger and Nile, so Joe ran close enough to Nicky to ask, “you okay?”

Nicky nodded, tight-lipped, looking downfield from Joe.

Joe turned. Keane was downfield, smirking at Nicky.

“Your boyfriend okay, Joe?” Booker hollered.

A couple of players on the Goon Squad turned to look at them and Joe died inside. He raised a hand to wave at Booker and wished that something dramatic would happen to distract everyone. Instead, the ball got kicked out of bounds and play stopped. Joe ran to get into position for the throw-in. Bridger threw it towards Keane, the Goon Squad stole it, and Nicky and Keane both went in to steal it back.

Keane and Nicky were both maneuvering for the ball when Keane ducked down and slammed his shoulder into Nicky’s midsection. Nicky’s stunned look lasted a split second and then disappeared into a grimace of pain and he fell. Keane smirked at Joe again as he straightened up and jogged off, the ball already halfway down the field with the Goon Squad.

Joe wanted to tackle the bastard and beat the shit out of him. Instead, he dropped to his knees next to Nicky, who was having trouble breathing. 

The ref blew her whistle.

“Keane got him in the stomach,” Joe said to Nile as she ran up. 

Nile put a hand on Nicky’s shoulder and another one on his ribs. “Give it a minute, Nicky, it might just be that he knocked the wind out of you.”

Nicky nodded, hanging onto Nile’s arm. Joe scanned the field when he heard Andy yelling at Keane for fouling his own teammate.

“Keane’s out,” Joe said. Keane jogged off the field in the other direction, pausing to high-five Merrick.

“This team do that kind of shit on their own players?” Nile asked. Her voice was low and angry. 

“No,” Joe said, “I’ve never seen this before.” That was the truth. Keane was not what anyone would describe as ‘nice’ but he showed up on time and did his job. Out of the two of them, Merrick was more likely to hold a grudge and do something underhanded. The gossip was that Merrick got his promotion to lieutenant because his mother was on the city council. He was smart enough, but he was also petty and looking for glory. Joe didn’t resent Merrick for taking all the credit for the rescue on Jay Pond, but the incident did make him lose respect for him. People who like to strut in front of the news cameras don’t make great team players.

“Keane is angry that he was wrong and I corrected him,” Nicky said. He put his hands behind his head and blew out a long breath.

“We need to tell Andy. She’s a good boss; she’ll make it right,” Joe said. If Merrick ever got promoted above Andy, Joe would start looking for another job. 

“That’ll just make it worse,” Nile said.

“I can handle it. Don’t tell the chief,” Nicky said. “Help me up. I’m going to sit out the rest of this quarter.”

Joe got to his feet and extended a hand. Nicky took it, stood up, and kept hold of Joe’s hand an extra few seconds while he steadied himself on his feet. Joe put his other hand on Nicky’s shoulder. Nicky looked at him and nodded, as if to say he was fine now. Joe didn’t let go. Booker was going to tease him no matter what he did at this point, so he may as well walk Nicky over to the sidelines. Quynh was waving at them, pointing to the camp chair she was no longer sitting in.

“Have you met the boss’s wife yet?” Joe asked.

Nicky looked around and spotted Quynh. It was really hard to miss Quynh when she wanted you to notice her. 

“Did you see what that shitstain did?” Quynh demanded, taking Nicky’s other arm to push him down into the chair like he was some sort of invalid. “He rammed right into you! On purpose! What the fuck is that man’s problem?”

Joe nodded. It looked like the boss was going to find out what Keane did even if Nicky didn’t want to tell her.

“Get back out on the field, Joe,” Quynh ordered him. “Are you the new medic?” she said to Nicky.

Joe jogged back out on the field. Nile was now playing forward. With Keane and Nicky out, they were down two players, so the game goal was to not embarrass themselves by losing too badly. Nile turned out to be a lot of fun to play with. She was quick on her feet and had a way of turning up unexpectedly, having dodged the other team. 

Nicky sat out the rest of the game, but Joe suspected it was more because Quynh wanted to talk to him than because he was still feeling the effects of getting the wind knocked out of him. They lost by four. The only other injury was Dizzy catching a ball in the face, but the nosebleed stopped after a few minutes. The Goon Squad got called for pushing a couple times. Really, other than Keane’s attack on Nicky, it was a pretty well-behaved game.

Keane stayed on the sidelines the rest of the game. It was too bad he didn’t leave. Instead, he joined them in the post-game chat where Merrick talked like they could have won if only Andy hadn’t benched Keane.

“Fuck that,” Andy said. “You want to play the next game? You apologize.” Andy glanced from Keane to Nicky, who was still talking to Quynh.

“To a medic? You want the station engineer to apologize to a medic?” Keane demanded.

“He’s got an attitude, Andy, you might have to tone him down a bit anyway,” Merrick helpfully added. “He got right up in Keane’s face the other day. Very unprofessional.”

“Keane was wrong,” Joe blurted out.

Both Merrick and Keane turned on him, and Joe felt the bottom drop out of his stomach the way it always did when both of his older brothers looked at him like that. Joe reminded himself that Andy wasn’t like his father and wouldn’t side with them automatically. Andy was fair.

“Keane was treating Lykon for an asthma attack. But it was really an anxiety attack. Nicky stopped him from giving Lykon steroids,” Joe said.

Everyone talked at once, telling the same story from five different angles. Andy sorted it all out and let Lykon have the final word.

Then she turned back to Keane. “You apologize to Nicky if you want to play the next game.”

Keane stormed off. Merrick followed him. Joe looked down the sideline to where Nicky and Nile were walking away. Somehow, he didn’t think Keane was going to apologize.

* * *

They hardly saw Nicky and Nile after that. The ambulance crew hung out wherever they wanted between calls - whether that was in the fire station or driving the ambulance around their district. Before the soccer game, Nicky and Nile had been around the stationhouse more than any other ambulance crew they’d had, but now they were at the station only for supplies and cleaning stops. Joe felt bad, but he understood why they would choose to stay away. Besides, Booker didn’t tease him about having a boyfriend if Nicky wasn’t around.

At the next game, Keane said he’d apologized to Nicky. Nicky and Nile weren’t there to say he hadn’t, so Andy let him play.

It was weeks before Joe saw Nicky again, and it was on a call. Dispatch called in a three-car pileup with a possible gasoline spill. They pulled up to the accident scene, siren wailing and lights flashing. Keane parked the engine partially blocking the lane next to the accident, to force cars over and give them a safer place to work. 

“Joe, assist medical. Booker and I will cover the hazmat situation,” Merrick directed. He took the jug of absorbent powder that Booker handed him and the two of them went to scout for pools of oil or gasoline. There were no open flames.

Joe took in the scene in a glance. A sedan had rear-ended a utility truck, and then gotten sandwiched by the SUV that rear-ended it. Roads were clear; visibility was good; several people were walking around looking shaken. The SUV at the end of the line had a buckled hood. The engine was already off and the car evacuated. The truck at the front of the line was intact. 

The sedan in the middle was crushed. People crowded around the driver side, so Joe went around to the passenger side and put a hand on the chassis to double check that the engine was off. That’s when he noticed that the medic crouching on the hood and reaching through the shattered windshield was Nicky. Nile was at the driver side window.

“What assist, Nicky?” Joe shouted over the noise of the sirens and crowd.

“Extrication,” Nicky shouted back.

“I’ve got a pulse and the airway is clear,” Nile said.

“Likely spinal injury,” Nicky said. “We can’t take him out through the side door.”

“I’m on it,” Joe said, and went to retrieve the extrication tools.

He ran past a woman sobbing to a police officer that she’d stopped as fast as she could and another person on a cell phone giving directions to the accident.

Keane was waiting at the engine for the next step to unfold.

“Spinal injury. We need to stabilize him and extricate,” Joe informed him. “I can handle it.”

“Sure you can,” Keane said, and came with him anyway, both of them carrying extrication tools.

The police cleared away the bystanders so the only people near the sedan were the medics who had gotten a collar on the patient and an IV line in. Mercifully, he was unconscious, which was its own problem for the medics, but Joe hated working on a conscious patient when the task was as serious as an extrication. 

Keane may be an asshole, but he was professional and competent on a call. He and Joe worked around Nicky and Nile, peeling the car open like an orange and removing the roof struts. Once the car structure was out of the way, Nicky and Nile got an extrication splint in place, and then the four of them got the long spine board positioned and began the actual extrication procedure. The patient moved easily the first several inches and then stopped before whatever blocked the removal let go and he started to slide out again.

A jet of blood hit Joe in the face. “Shit!”

“That’s an artery!” Nicky exclaimed.

Joe clamped the heel of his hand down over the femoral artery that had just been sliced open by a jagged piece of metal and used his other hand to apply counter pressure to the back of his thigh so he wouldn’t aggravate the spinal injury while trying to keep the man from bleeding to death. The slow and steady atmosphere of an extrication turned urgent as the gash in the man’s thigh started the death clock ticking.

With both his hands stanching the bleeding, Joe couldn’t help move the patient’s weight. Keane basically lifted the entire contraption, backboard and man, with Nicky and Nile stabilizing him until they could get him on the stretcher.

“Don’t move your hand!” Nicky ordered him.

Joe climbed into the ambulance next to the stretcher, an awkward maneuver because he couldn’t use his hands for anything. Nile took the driver seat. Joe’s wrists started to ache from the steady pressure he was applying to the patient’s thigh. Nicky gave him a bandage, and Joe got the bandage in place and applied pressure again, the blood soaking through the pad. Nicky started a unit of blood, monitored vitals and talked to the ER on the speaker phone. Joe watched him rather than watch the patient. Nicky had a preternaturally calm aura that laid over the quick efficiency of his actions as he did a thousand things at once without even changing facial expressions. The man must have ice in his veins.

His glance landed on Joe once or twice, and Joe wondered if he was staring too much. Nicky stripped off his gloves and put on a clean pair. He pulled a sterilizing wipe out of a container and crowded next to Joe.

Nicky took Joe’s chin in his hand. “Close your eyes.” 

Fifty kissing daydreams darted through Joe’s head and he couldn’t keep himself from staring at Nicky’s mouth. He had a deep dent in his upper lip and Joe wanted to put his finger right there. “What?”

Under Joe’s scrutiny, Nicky’s lips twitched in a smile. “Close your eyes.”

Joe obeyed.

“The blood got close to your eye, and I don’t want this to sting,” he said, wiping the blood off Joe’s face with careful strokes. Sure enough, he got close to Joe’s eye. Joe was fairly sure that Nicky didn’t need to be holding his chin quite so gently, and the thumb rubbing circles on his cheek was definitely not medically required.

“You could have said that’s what you were doing!” Joe protested.

“What did you think I was doing?” Nicky asked as he threw out the sterilizing wipe and snapped off his gloves.

“Are we flirting in an ambulance?” Joe asked.

“You sure are!” Nile hollered from the driver’s seat.

“With an audience,” Nicky said, and then he smiled.

Joe’s grin split his face in half. He had just openly flirted with an attractive man for the first time in his life. 

“Put a lid on it, you two, we’re in public now,” Nile said as she pulled into the ambulance bay at the hospital.

Joe grinned even wider. He was one half of a ‘you two’ now.

Nicky shook his head and checked the patient’s vitals.

It had been months since Joe was last in the ER, but the atmosphere never changed - supercharged and grungy, despite the smell of antiseptic. Because his hand was basically attached to the patient at this point, Joe ran in with the stretcher while Nicky gave the ER doc the report on the vitals. Within a few seconds, Joe was being elbowed out of the way by someone with a wound kit and he backed off to the edges of the room, watching the carefully choreographed chaos of people determined to save a life.

Moments like these are why he was a firefighter. He was part of this team - these people who lived on adrenaline and frugal taxpayer salaries because they wanted to help people in the worst moments of their lives. This was his home, more than the home he grew up in, more than the mosque, more than the studio apartment that was all he could afford on a firefighter salary. He would live on this adrenaline rush until the next one happened, bridging his way over the sadness that couldn’t touch him when he was working a call.

Nile and Nicky gravitated towards him as they finished the handoff to the ER team. Joe stripped his gloves off, decided they would never come clean, and stuffed them into a biohazards waste bin. The three of them checked in with each other, shook their heads about what they’d just done, and then left it behind them.

“We should go,” Nicky said, looking around the hallway.

“If she was on-shift, she’d be in there,” Nile said, nodding towards the trauma bay they had just left.

“They take turns,” Nicky said. “She could be on a different assignment right now. Let’s go.”

“Who are we avoiding?” Joe asked.

“An ER doc who’s got a thing for Nicky,” Nile said.

“I did not ask her to have a thing for me,” Nicky said indignantly.

“Tell her you’re gay, Nicky,” Nile said.

“I did,” Nicky said sulkily.

The post-adrenaline rush, combined with the expression on Nicky’s face, made Joe laugh out loud. A quick flash of hurt crossed Nicky’s face and disappeared as quickly as it appeared.

Before Joe could react to it, the ER doc in question appeared. She was slim, wore no makeup and had her straight hair pulled back to the nape of her neck. Joe figured out who she was because she lit up when she saw Nicky. She didn’t look like the sort of person who smiled like that for just anyone.

“I wondered if it would be you. Hello Nicky. Hello Nile. How was the transport?” she asked.

“We nicked an artery on the extrication,” Nile said when Nicky didn’t say anything.

“I’m sure Nicky knew exactly what to do,” Dr. Kozak said (Joe read her name tag). He wondered why Nicky was so uncomfortable. He had to be used to attention like this. Booker would flirt with anyone, and Merrick would eat up a situation like this whether he liked the woman in question or not. Joe dealt with more than his fair share. Women were attracted to uniforms like moths to flame.

“Joe knew what to do,” Nicky said, nodding towards Joe.

A whole host of things jumbled together in Joe’s mind - regret for laughing at Nicky’s discomfort just now, the giddiness of knowing Nicky deliberately touched his face in the ambulance, the sudden realization that Nicky had a hard time dealing with emotionally complex situations - and the need to help Nicky mixed with the adrenaline rush of what they’d just accomplished together and Joe took action without really thinking it through.

“You’re too modest, babe,” Joe said. When Nicky turned towards him in surprise, Joe brushed the back of his fingers lightly over Nicky’s chin. He turned to Dr. Kozak. “My man is one damn fine medic, isn’t he?” He unleashed his thousand-watt smile on her. A woman he’d once treated for smoke inhalation told him that her shock symptoms were due to his smile plus the uniform and the smoke had nothing to do with it. Booker overheard that comment, so Joe got to hear it repeated a few times a day for the next several months. 

“He is, yes, he’s very good at his job,” Dr. Kozak said. “Excuse me, I need to check on a patient.” She scurried off, heels tapping on the linoleum.

Nile put up an eyebrow. “Well, damn.”

“Why did you do that?” Nicky asked, staring at Joe with puzzlement.

“I shouldn’t have laughed at you just now. And, well, maybe she’ll leave you alone now?” Joe said with a shrug.

Nicky turned his head to look at the door that had shut behind Dr. Kozak, and then back at Joe. Then he smiled. “Thank you.”

“Dude, that gets more than a thank you,” Nile said. “You want to come hang out with us? We’re off next Tuesday. I’m making egg rolls.”

Joe looked between them, from Nile’s open grin to Nicky’s soft smile. “I’d love that.”

* * *

Joe spent way too much time trying to decide what to take to an egg roll dinner party. Getting together with Booker to watch sports was easy - he brought Cheetos. Booker ordered pizza (olive and mushroom, though he usually teased Joe about ordering pepperoni and sausage before assuring him he wouldn’t actually order that). There was nothing complicated about the food when hanging out with Booker, though Joe’s mother informed him that Cheetos did not actually count as food. But egg rolls? Who made egg rolls from scratch? Joe googled appetizers for egg rolls and ended up reading recipes.

Shit. What if they were making egg rolls with sausage? All Booker’s teasing about not eating pork was making him self-conscious. Should he text and say he couldn’t eat pork? Should he just go with it and ask for forgiveness later? Fine, he’d eat the damn egg rolls. 

After far too much menu introspection, he made honey cookies rolled in crushed almonds. Joe loved anything with honey and people were impressed he could make cookies, like that was somehow trickier than passing the chemistry test to get his hazmat certificate. Joe was a fair cook, actually, which was one of the many reasons his brothers considered him a wuss. They were both married and Joe was pretty sure they hadn’t spread butter on bread since their weddings. His father had stopped asking when Joe was getting married, but not in a nice accepting way, more of a ‘you’re so hopeless I’ve given up’ way. For as long as Joe had wished his father would drop the subject of Joe’s marriage, it was even worse now that he actually had.

He snapped the lid shut on the cookie container and set the dishes in the sink. Somehow, he didn’t think most men in their thirties worried so much about what their brothers and father thought of them. Wasn’t he supposed to be past this? He had a vivid memory of being sixteen years old and knowing, just _knowing_ with all his heart and soul, that by the time he was eighteen, he’d have life figured out and would know where he fit. Then when he turned eighteen, he decided he’d have it figured out by twenty. Then twenty-two. And so on, always choosing an age two years older than his actual age. So at this point, he had until he was thirty-eight to have life all figured out.

The wave of sadness slopped over the top of him and Joe stopped with one shoe on to wonder when he was going to feel like he had a handle on his life. He had a job, he paid his bills, he had an apartment. When did he start feeling like an adult? Surely not all adults wandered around in a fog of confusion about where they fit and how life was supposed to work. Surely they weren’t all faking it?

Joe wanted to ask someone about it, but this wasn’t something he could bring up with any of the guys at work. Or his family. He’d brought it up with a guy he thought was a friend because they’d been attending the same mosque for almost a year and got a lecture about getting married. They didn’t talk much after that. His imam seemed nice enough, much more laidback than the imam at his parents’ mosque, but the fear of another marriage lecture meant Joe just smiled and nodded when his imam asked how he was. Therapy was a hard pass. Joe’s options for deep conversation were pretty limited, all things considered.

Did Nicky and Nile have it all figured out? They were such good friends they shared a house and worked together. That was pretty incredible. They lacked Keane’s bluster, Booker’s sarcastic humor and Merrick’s highhanded officiousness. Even if he never asked out Nicky, he wanted to be friends with them.

He wanted to ask out Nicky.

Shit.

That would mean coming out around somebody other than a Grindr hookup with fake names and a motel room rented with cash.

Nicky already knew, but still.

Joe sighed. He really needed a way to turn his brain off.

* * *

Nicky and Nile rented a tiny brick house in an area of town sandwiched between public transit stations and a half-empty mall. Joe drove past a lot of chain link fences before his driving app announced his arrival. He parked on the street, under an elm tree that had buckled the sidewalk. The house had wooden trim work in need of paint and cracked cement steps. The whole place was old and in need of repairs. The flowerbed under the front window seemed an apologetic afterthought to the setting - roses, cone flowers and phlox crowded into the one spot of ground. Joe spent a few minutes framing the shot before getting a picture. It was one of those shots that made him think about buying paint and trying to paint it. He wanted to capture the contrast - the dingy surroundings with one beautiful and unexpected accent that simply didn’t belong. 

Except. 

He reframed the shot, offsetting the flowerbed and getting some of the front window into the frame. It was nice brickwork. And sure, the paint was peeling on the porch railing, but with the roses under it, it gave the impression that it was an old and well-loved porch railing that didn’t feel like it needed to keep up appearances. Comfortable - that was the word, like wearing a sweatshirt and old jeans instead of cufflinks and polished shoes. The flowerbed wasn’t really out of place, if you decided last year’s dead leaves were mulch instead of neglect. Actually, the flowers fit right in and made you realize that everything else wasn’t as bad as you’d thought at first. It was the sort of place you could either criticize for being rundown, or admire because it had a certain sense of permanence and strength that shone through despite the raggedy details.

Joe looked at the little house again. Besides the large window over the flowerbed, it had a corner window with glazed glass, and one of those hothouse windows that could be used to grow spices, and a tiny window under a dormer on the roof was propped open with a stick. The little house had a very high window to wall ratio. The light in there would likely be magnificent for painting. He turned back to the elm, which seemed to be an ancient matriarch presiding over a cozy home, the broken sidewalk proof of the elm’s strength, it’s soaring branches stark against the blue sky. He wanted to paint an entire series, starting with a closeup of the flower bed, and then gradually drawing in all the surroundings as a frame: the short-lived beauty of flowers tucked into the long-lived beauty of an elm, an old house and a cracked sidewalk.

If Joe ever did anything with art, he would want to create pictures of old things and present them with the dignity due to their age and their ability to endure.

Nicky opened the door while Joe was still taking pictures. “Is this going on your Instagram?” he asked. 

Joe was caught out and ended up stammering. He never talked much about art. His father had referred to Joe’s tendency to fill margins with sketches as ‘pansyass’ when he was a teen and his brothers had laughed. He’d wanted to study art, take classes and maybe see if he could produce something other artists would pronounce acceptable, but he knew better than to ever say that. Instead, he’d gotten his firefighter certification and kept his art supplies limited to pencils. It was just a silly little hobby, pansyass and useless. He wouldn’t ever paint any of the pictures he’d just taken.

“No, I just, you know, the flowers and the tree,” Joe said with a shrug, hoping Nicky would drop it and invite him in. He picked up the cookie container he’d set on the ground in order to take pictures and walked to the porch.

“Show me.”

Unable to dodge such a direct request, Joe tapped his phone to get into the gallery and handed it to Nicky. Nicky asked questions and Joe ended up explaining the contrast he was trying to capture. Nile joined them on the porch and hung over Nicky’s shoulder to see the pictures on Joe’s phone.

Nicky stopped on the last picture, the one of the elm tree against the sky. “You framed this one with the tree off center, to show the tree sharing the frame with the blue.”

“Elms are so huge and magnificent from our point of view, and yet so small in comparison to the sky. I liked the idea that the sky respects this tiny little tree that looks so large to us. The large and powerful are made greater when they respect the small and insignificant. The elm tree breaking the sidewalk, looming so large over this house, and then being dwarfed by the sky in its turn seemed to symbolize that interplay between the size and power of so many different things, each in its place and interlocking instead of dominating.” Joe didn’t know where all that came from. 

“You are an artist,” Nicky said. “I didn’t know.”

Joe took his phone back, ducking his head. There was something warm and huge blooming in his chest at being called an artist and he was afraid it would show up in his eyes. Nicky said the word with respect, not with derision, as if an artist was something he might admire.

“I’m not really an artist. I doodle in margins a bit, that’s all,” Joe said with a laugh to show it was no big deal.

Nile grabbed his elbow and hauled him into the house. “Come here and look at what I’ve got.”

That was how Joe found out that Nile was an art historian on a tight budget. The little house was filled with giclee art prints and even a couple of replica statues. What followed was the two most marvelous hours of his life - talking about light and composition and symbols with Nile and Nicky filled up his soul. Nile put a pencil in his hand and Joe started out sketching in margins, his usual canvas, but when Nicky set a drawing pad in front of him, he took it over, intending to sketch the ceramic Rodin and ending up sketching Nile holding the Rodin.

“You can draw faces,” Nicky said reverently.

“Wow,” Nile said, dropping onto the couch next to Joe. 

Suddenly, it was too much. Joe was overwhelmed by art, by encouragement, by drawing and having it praised instead of dismissed. He needed to withdraw some of those vulnerable parts of himself and keep them safe before he risked exposing too much. He handed the art pad to Nile and rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand. “That’s enough for today, don’t you think?”

Nicky took the turn of the conversation without arguing, which made Joe fall in love with him a little bit more. Wait, when had he gone from wishing he was brave enough to ask Nicky out to knowing that Nicky hung the moon in the sky and was the source of all the warmth in Joe’s life? 

“Let’s get the egg rolls wrapped. Do you want to help, Joe?” Nicky asked.

Joe learned to roll egg rolls, which indeed were made with sausage. He didn’t care. They loved art and nothing else mattered right now. Nile handled the deep fryer; Nicky made sauce; Joe rolled egg rolls and the three of them talked about nothing with much laughter.

“It’s turkey sausage,” Nicky said, a total non sequitur in the chat about crazy things you could order at local restaurants.

“What?” Joe asked.

“It’s turkey sausage in the egg rolls. We didn’t know if you could eat pork, so we played it safe,” Nicky said.

“Thanks,” Joe said. That warm feeling was blooming in his chest again. They must have heard Booker teasing him. Booker’s teasing was good for something, it turned out.

The egg rolls were delicious. He ate four of them.

“It’s a good thing we finished off those cookies before we had dinner,” Nile said. “I’m not sure I could eat another thing right now, and those cookies were good.”

“Same,” Nicky said, staring at the ceiling with his hands folded over his belly. He was sprawled over an overstuffed couch.

“Do you eat like this every day?” Joe asked.

“No, usually it’s zucchini,” Nile said.

Nicky threw a pillow at her, and Joe assumed an inside joke had just taken place.

“I’m going to meet some friends for drinks. Don’t wait up,” Nile said. Just that fast, she was gone.

Joe looked from the door closing behind her back to Nicky, who was still sprawled on the couch. “Did I say something wrong?”

Nicky hauled himself upright, then gave it up and draped himself over the arm of the couch and propped up his head on his hand. “She said that if she liked you, she’d leave and give us some time alone.”

“Oh,” Joe said eloquently. 

Nicky gave him that barely-there smile with a bit of an extra glint in his eye. Greatly daring, Joe walked over and sat down on the couch next to Nicky. Nicky turned towards him, his arm draped over the back of the couch so that if Joe shifted just a bit, he might end up with Nicky’s arm around him. Joe tried it and it worked; Nicky’s hand dropped onto his shoulder. Joe leaned in, just a bit, just enough to press his chest against Nicky’s side so he could feel him breathing.

“I want to talk to you before we kiss,” Nicky said.

Joe fastened onto the assumption that they were going to kiss and ignored the rest of the sentence. Joe hadn’t kissed men before. He’d kissed a few women, and even had sex a couple times while trying to convince himself that he was straight. His trip to the sex worker to lose his v-card (with men) and the one Grindr hookup that hadn’t stood him up had been better in a tantalizing way - like showing him a possibility without reality. But those had been transactional - do the deed and get it done, though the sex worker had offered to cuddle with him if he wanted. Joe had politely said no and left a tip. He hadn’t kissed either of them.

The buzzing in his blood just sitting next to Nicky was more exciting than any sex he’d ever had. He brushed a thumb over the mole near Nicky’s mouth and imagined putting his own mouth right there.

Nicky caught his hand, which Joe considered an excellent development. He grinned.

“You should have to get that licensed and give warnings before you do that,” Nicky said.

“Do what?”

“Smile.”

That made Joe laugh. Nicky’s answering smile was the biggest Joe had ever seen from him, and it instantly became Joe’s life quest to make Nicky laugh out loud.

“We are talking now,” Nicky informed him. “People at work joke that we are boyfriends and this worries you. I told you I would say yes if you asked me out. You aren’t out as gay but you pretended we were dating in front of Dr. Kozak. I find out you are an artist. You have a smile that could kill the unsuspecting. I suggested we would kiss and you didn’t say no. You didn’t say anything. I think you should say something now.”

“Uh,” Joe stalled, trying to combine everything Nicky had just thrown at him into something coherent.

“Use words, Joe.”

Joe gave up on coherence and decided to use Nicky’s method of throwing out little bits of everything and seeing if they formed a mosaic or a mess. “I have two older brothers who make a lot of gay jokes. I’m a firefighter so my dad won’t think I’m a wuss for liking art. Watching Keane hurt you made me see red and I wanted to bust his ass. You’re a fucking awesome medic. I really want to kiss you and I’m worried I’ll be bad at it. I want to be proud of being gay but mostly I’m still scared but guys my size aren’t supposed to be scared, I mean, I run into burning buildings - why am I scared to admit I’m gay? But I am. I got all teary about you using turkey sausage in the egg rolls. I can’t stop thinking about you and it took me four hours to decide on bringing cookies today.”

Nicky propped his head on his fist, which meant he didn’t have his arm around Joe anymore, and looked at him as if solving a puzzle.

“Was that . . . too much?” Joe ventured.

“You have a strong personality and you are afraid to be yourself,” Nicky said.

That was a verbal harpoon through the heart. Where the fuck did Nicky get off piling all his issues into one too-accurate sentence? Was it too soon to propose?

“I’m going to kiss you now,” Nicky said.

He put action to words and set a hand behind Joe’s head and kissed him. 

There were no fireworks. Nicky’s kiss was gentle and unassuming, like coming home out of a storm into the smell of fresh-baked bread and the feel of warm blankets. He belonged to Nicky’s kiss; his mouth would always recognize Nicky’s touch. Joe set a hand on Nicky’s chest and kissed him back, careful to match what Nicky was doing. When Nicky let go of the kiss, his hand guided Joe to rest his head on Nicky’s shoulder. Nicky leaned back to accommodate his height and, for the first time in his life, Joe got to cuddle with someone he was attracted to. He got an arm around Nicky’s back, and rested his other hand on Nicky’s face where he could run a thumb over the day’s worth of scruff on Nicky’s jawline. 

Nicky pulled a blanket off the back of the couch and draped it haphazardly over them.

“Tell me about your older brothers,” he said.

“They’re not very much fun to talk about,” Joe said, but then he found himself telling Nicky everything. There was a gap of six years between Joe and his two older brothers, who were only 15 months apart in age. He’d been born too late and spent a lifetime trying unsuccessfully to catch up with them. Four years passed before Joe’s younger brother was born, and then his sister followed two years later. Joe was alone in the middle. He tried too hard to join in with his older brothers. Now they were 42 and 43 and each had a wife and kids. His younger sister was married and four months pregnant; his younger brother was expecting to get engaged soon. Joe didn’t fit in anymore.

“My older brothers remind me of Merrick and Keane,” Joe finished his monologue. “They’ve got so much confidence and I just wish they took me seriously.”

“Hmph,” Nicky said, which made his chest twitch against Joe.

“What?”

“Merrick and Keane don’t have confidence; they have arrogance. They want you to admire them, but they don’t do anything to win respect.”

Joe tried out that description on his two older brothers and decided it fit. He’d never said any of this out loud before, and in a couple of sentences, Nicky had entirely recast his view of his brothers. He was going to have to think about that. “Were you a therapist before you got EMT training?”

Nicky shrugged.

Joe pushed himself up to look at Nicky, but Nicky wouldn’t meet his eyes. Joe had just spilled some really personal information, which always made him jittery. Putting himself out there like that was a risk and if Nicky wasn’t going to reciprocate, then it would leave Joe feeling vulnerable. He hated that feeling. “What did you do before you were a medic? Is it a secret?”

“Not a secret. Just. People look at me differently if they know certain things. This might be a better conversation to have after we’ve dated for a few months. If you want to date, I mean,” Nicky said.

“I just told you really personal things that I’ve never told anyone else before,” Joe pointed out. His craving for deep conversation was going to torpedo this relationship before it got started, it seemed. “Do we go back to talking about sports and the weather?”

Nicky looked past Joe’s shoulder, the muscle in his jaw working.

Joe sat up, unwilling to stay in Nicky’s arms. At a job he’d held a few years ago, he’d had a conversation like this. He’d told another firefighter some personal things about the difficult relationship he had with his father; she’d encouraged him to talk; never said anything personal about herself, and then gossiped Joe’s comments around the firehouse. He tried to roll with it, but ended up quitting a few months after. No one had really been cruel about it or anything, it was just his own self-consciousness about wishing he hadn’t made himself vulnerable and open with someone who wouldn’t reciprocate. He shouldn’t have said anything about his brothers to Nicky. He should have kept this evening at a few kisses and not tried something that really mattered to him. Even Nicky’s first comments that pulled all this out of Joe didn’t divulge anything about Nicky as a person. What did he know about Nicky? He was a good medic and a decent soccer player. That wasn’t much of a foundation for a relationship.

Nicky put a hand on Joe’s arm. “Please don’t go. If you want to know, I’ll tell you. But if you could please not . . . tell this to everyone, whether or not we . . . happen.”

Nicky was afraid of the same things Joe was afraid of. Not everyone craved deep conversation the way he did; he ought to know that by now. Plus, he already knew that Nicky was more reserved than most people. Joe recalled Nicky’s awkward misery about Dr. Kozak’s crush and wondered if he froze up whenever anyone liked him. Nile was the one who invited him over, and things didn’t get awkward until Nile left. Joe was expecting Nicky to be suave and sophisticated, since at least he was out of the closet and presumably knew how to be a gay man. Perhaps that wasn’t a fair expectation.

“Aw hell, I didn’t mean to pry. It’s just that I get a little weird when I spill my guts, you know? I wanted to try and even it out, but you don’t have to tell me stuff,” Joe said, trying to walk back his demand that Nicky tell him something that he clearly wasn’t ready to say. “Let’s talk about something else, something casual. Tell me about your family.” That would be easy; no one had family issues like Joe.

Nicky shuddered, and then leaned forward and landed his head on Joe’s shoulder.

Oh.

Joe put a hand on Nicky’s soft straight hair, so different from his own. He petted him, kissed his head, then manhandled him around to switch positions so Joe was leaning on the arm of the couch and Nicky was cuddled on his chest. “I’m not going to repeat anything you say to me no matter what happens between us, but you don’t have to say anything at all. Just let me hold you. I don’t care if we talk.”

“Thank you,” Nicky replied softly. 

Joe closed his eyes and listened to the clock ticking. It was a Salvador Dali clock, with the numbers all skewed. Nile’s art collection cheerfully mixed kitschy and classic. He had a full stomach; he was warm; Nicky felt good clasped against his chest; he was emotionally drained from a day of art and talking too much. Falling asleep was really the only natural thing to do at that point.

* * *

Mornings were not Joe’s thing. Unless there was a fire alarm going off, it took him a good thirty minutes to go from consciousness to standing up, and that’s only if he had somewhere to be. He rubbed his face with both hands and squinted, scrunching up his face and then pried his eyes open.

Nicky’s couch. No Nicky on his chest. Blanket pulled up to his stomach. Socks on his feet. Nile sitting on an ottoman watching him wake up.

Fuck, that was kinda weird. Joe struggled to a sitting position.

“It’s easier to sit up if you put your feet on the floor,” Nile said helpfully.

Joe put his feet on the floor. She was right. He usually figured that out eventually on his own.

“So you want to do a deep dive into Nicky’s past, huh?” was Nile’s next comment.

“Nile, let the man have his coffee first,” Nicky said, handing Joe a cup of coffee.

Joe squinted as he took the coffee. The lights were sure bright. He squinted at Nicky and determined that Nicky had showered, shaved, changed into clean clothes, made coffee and, if his nose was right, toast. Nile also looked as fresh as a daisy. Whatever people meant when they said that. Why the hell did people have to be so perky and energetic at this hour? He squinted at the Salvador Dali clock, which failed to tell him what time it was. 

Joe sipped coffee and tried to process recently spoken words. Something about Nicky’s past. Yes, he’d asked what Nicky did before he was an EMT and that set off some sort of emotional crisis and then they both fell asleep. They were so old. You do something like that in your teens and you stay up all night to watch how bad it can get. Joe idly wondered how much young adult angst could be avoided by going to sleep at a reasonable hour.

“How long have you been an EMT?” Joe asked Nicky.

“Two years.”

“I asked what he was doing three years ago. That’s not that deep, Nile,” Joe pointed out.

“I was having an existential crisis of faith and trying to find my place in the world,” Nicky replied.

“That’s deep, Joe,” Nile said.

“Can I take a piss first?” Joe asked plaintively.

“Empty stomach; full bladder,” Nicky observed.

“Foggy brain,” Nile added.

“Hold my coffee,” Joe said, handing his coffee cup back to Nicky. 

Using the bathroom gave him a few more minutes to wake up. He splashed water on his face. Firefighter regulations required him to stay clean-shaven, but he now had 36 hours of beard, which was a fairly thick coat of black scruff. It itched at this length, but he didn’t want to borrow Nicky’s shaving supplies if they were about to have a really awkward conversation. He settled for a rough toweling and went back out.

Joe pulled out a chair at the kitchen table. His coffee mug was already there so he picked it up and sipped it. 

“I’m ready to answer your question now,” Nicky said. He set a plate of toast down on the table and joined Joe. 

Nile sat down with them, lips pursed and eyes serious. 

Joe was getting strong sister-vibes from Nile. 

“I didn’t mean to pry into stuff you don’t want to talk about,” Joe said.

“I asked you personal questions and you answered them. It’s only fair that I answer your questions,” Nicky said.

Joe couldn’t help glancing at Nile.

“I told her you talked to me about your family,” Nicky said.

“And that’s all he said,” Nile added. “Nicky’s probably the most trustworthy person you’ll ever talk to. He never repeats anything. He took a vow.”

Joe assumed that was a hyperbole until Nicky said, “Nile,” in a reproving voice.

Nile held up her hands. “Just sayin.” 

“So you took a vow to not repeat stuff people tell you?” Joe asked.

“It was part of my training as a Catholic priest.”

Joe set his mug down hard enough to splash and swallowed very carefully. This was not a moment that needed to be interrupted by a Heimlich maneuver, though he had no doubt they were both excellent at it. “Say again?”

Nicky swallowed hard. “I was ordained a Catholic priest four years ago. I didn’t last very long.”

“Start at the beginning, Nicky,” Nile prompted him.

As instructed, Nicky started at the beginning, like, all the way back to being born in Genoa, Italy to a family that had been Catholic since the first Pope. Growing up in the United States, Joe had gotten the impression that most Christians were more cultural than religious, and that was why so many of them were puzzled at how much time he spent being Muslim, with the daily prayers (usually), the dietary laws (some more than others), mosque for Jumah prayer every Friday (when he wasn’t working), Ramadan (he used most of his furlough), alms-giving (his favorite), and learning enough Arabic to read the Q’uran (not as successful as he’d hoped). Nicky was as Catholic as Joe was Muslim, and some things about Nicky’s story rang true in Joe’s life as well - the certainty that life had to be lived a certain way; the way questions were gently discouraged; the pity felt towards outsiders; and most especially the feeling that fitting into a family meant faithful and conforming piety.

“I knew I was gay by my mid-teens,” Nicky said. “I had a boyfriend. We were young and silly and happy. Neither one of us was out to our families. We knew it was a sin, but everything is a sin, so why not sin towards happiness? That is what I thought. Then his brother saw us kissing; his brother told his mother, who called my mother.” Nicky shrugged and his face went very still. “He broke up with me instantly. My mother cried; my father yelled; my sisters were horrified; my brothers laughed.”

Joe had spent a year wondering what his family would do if he came out to them. He guessed it would be similar to Nicky’s family. 

“I repented,” Nicky said, “of course I did. But only publicly. In private, I got as bad as I could - hookups every night. I took money for sex. I did everything and then did it some more. Then something scared me and I stopped. I dedicated my life wholly to God. My family didn’t know anything besides that I had kissed a boyfriend, and I let them think that was all I did. I confessed all my sins to Father Emilio and decided to become a priest so I would never sin again. I held to that for many years.” 

He sighed and set down the coffee mug he’d been holding. Joe looked at Nicky’s hand on the table for a second and then covered it with his own. Nicky looked at their hands in surprise, then gave Joe that barely there smile. 

“What changed?” Joe asked.

“A gay man came to my confessional booth and told me that he had fallen in love with another man. He wept. He wanted to repent. And I could not tell him that he had committed a sin.” Nicky squeezed Joe’s fingers. “I am not a sin.”

“I am not haraam,” Joe replied. At Nicky’s questioning look, Joe added, “that’s kind of the gay Muslim slogan. I found it online.” He added that last bit so Nicky wouldn’t ask about his gay Muslim friends. Joe didn’t have any gay Muslim friends; if he had, maybe he wouldn’t have stayed closeted into his 30s. He was completely alone in this experience and always had been.

Nicky nodded, thoughtful. “I went back to the Bible. Jesus Christ never said anything against homosexuality; the apostle Paul wrote about it. I won’t bore you with my lengthy scriptural exegesis, but at last I concluded that Jesus would care more about being kind to the outcast than about having the right kind of sex.”

Joe nodded. He wasn’t as focused on what Muslim holy writings said about homosexuality as he was about how his family and friends would treat him. He was going to be Muslim regardless of what the scriptures said; he just wanted the people important to him to accept him. 

“When I explained all my thoughts to my bishop, he invited me to apply to be released from the clerical state. I believe in English the word is laicized.” Nicky looked to Nile, who nodded. “Because I am ordained, I am still a priest, but without the authority to perform the sacraments, other than last rites if it is an emergency.”

Nicky went on about transitioning out of the priesthood and meeting Nile who was in Italy on an art history tour. Joe just stared at him, perplexed at how calmly he said that the religion to which he’d dedicated his life “invited” him to get the hell out and stripped him of every effort he’d made to live faithfully.

“Nile said she was going to EMT school and said I could come too, so I applied for a visa and moved to the United States,” Nicky said, just as calmly as he’d said everything else about how violently his entire life had been uprooted. “I always wanted to help people; being a paramedic is just a different way to do it. I like it.”

He stopped talking.

Joe didn’t know how to respond. There was so much in Nicky’s story that he needed a minute to process it.

Nile leaned into the silence. “Some people are dicks about it once they find out Nicky’s a laicized priest.” The warning in her tone was obvious.

“I’m not a dick,” Joe protested. He stammered, trying to gather up words to put to his feelings and thoughts. “Nicky has depth; I’ve sensed that from the start. His story surprises me only because no one else in his faith seemed to realize the immense goodness of his heart and his desire to be kind. Even with this injustice that uprooted his entire life, Nicky didn’t say a word to condemn either the people or his faith. That kind of compassion is rooted in something deeper than faith - it comes from his heart, it comes from his soul. I wish more people on this earth were like him.”

That might have been too much. Joe had a tendency to give speeches when he felt deeply about something. 

Nicky crouched next to Joe’s chair and pulled him into an awkward hug. “Thank you,” he said. When he let go and Joe could straighten up, he saw tears in Nicky’s eyes. Maybe the speech hadn’t gone over the top.

“Okay,” Nile said. “That wasn’t a bad start.” Then she grinned at him.

“Do I have your permission to date him?” Joe asked.

Nile laughed. “Nicky makes his own decisions, but I like you.” Then her glance landed on that Salvador Dali clock that Joe couldn’t read. “Oh, shit! Our shift starts in 30 minutes!” 

Nicky double-checked the time on his phone, getting out of his chair. “Joe, I’m sorry we have to leave.”

The rest of the conversation happened in shouted bursts between Nile looking for her shoes and Nicky packing a lunch box and it consisted mostly of reassurances that they would talk again soon.

He walked them out, holding his cookie container that Nicky had washed last night and stashed in the fridge full of leftover egg rolls. 

Nicky paused before getting into the car. “Are we okay? Really?”

Joe grinned at him, then, greatly daring, brushed his lips against Nicky’s. “Yeah, we’re okay.”

The delight in Nicky’s eyes kept a smile on Joe’s face the rest of the day.

* * *

Joe dropped by the station on his day off to pick up his turnout jacket for a deep clean. When he saw Nicky follow Andy into her office, he loitered a bit, hoping to say hi to Nicky. While eavesdropping (they left the door open), Joe found out that Nile was home sick with a migraine and Andy couldn’t find anyone to cover her shift.

Joe knocked on Andy’s open door and offered to ride along with Nicky. Like all firefighters, Joe was an EMT. Ambulance crews had to have at least one paramedic. The second person could be either a paramedic also, like Nile, or an EMT. The Old Guard Fire Department had enough in the budget to pay two full paramedics, but regulations allowed Nicky to partner with an EMT for a shift.

“You can’t work a twelve hour shift the day before you go back on a twenty-four hour shift,” Andy informed him. “You know they won’t let us pay you overtime. Fucking penny pinchers.”

“I’ll do it for free,” Joe said, thrilled at the chance to spend time with Nicky without Nile around. Nile was great, but he wanted Nicky to himself. He snuck a glance at Nicky, who glanced shyly back and then ducked his head. Joe couldn’t keep the smile off his face.

“Oh my god. Both of you shut up. I don’t want to know anything. Joe, you work four hours of the shift. I’ll find someone to cover the last eight hours. Get out of my office. Don’t say a word. Leave. Now.” Andy made shooing motions, which were rather more threatening than she probably intended because she was holding a lethal letter opener Quynh gave her that was shaped like a Vietnamese saber.

As instructed, Joe and Nicky left without another word. Joe put his turnout jacket back in his locker and changed into a short-sleeved shirt with firefighter and EMT patches on the sleeve while Nicky watched. It may have taken him a bit longer than it usually did to do up all the buttons. Also, he stretched first. Nicky didn’t even pretend to not appreciate that.

“You are very handsome,” were Nicky’s first words once they were in the ambulance. 

The compliment flustered him a bit. He’d heard it plenty of times from women, but it was different coming from Nicky. “You’re nice to look at yourself,” he said, eyes on the road. Joe was driving. It turned out Nile always drove, so Joe was the driver today. 

“We probably shouldn’t make out in the ambulance while we’re working,” Nicky commented casually.

“Um. Rain check?” Joe’s mind filled with images of what exactly they might be able to do on a stretcher. All of them required more determination than comfort. He might have tried it if he was a teenager, actually, but not in his mid-thirties.

“Okay.”

The conversation moved on to everything else in the world. Nicky was only quiet in crowds, it turned out. In this setting, he talked as much as Joe. The conversation was an explosion of excitement, a race to find everything they had in common, a hunt for everywhere they differed. Joe made mental notes of topics he wanted to come back to and explore in-depth because right now was about covering as much ground as possible. For ninety glorious minutes, they drove around and talked. 

Then the first call came in from dispatch. “Eight-oh-six, I have a call for you.” The dispatcher’s voice was shrill instead of calm and both of them tensed. “We have a three-year-old choking at 965 Ingleston Drive.”

Lights, sirens, and total silence from both of them. Joe assumed Nicky was praying as hard as he was. Kid calls were the worst. Not only because of the added tragedy of a child’s suffering, but children were harder to work on - more breakable and less able to communicate. Dispatch updated that the airway did not appear to be completely obstructed, which stressed out Joe even more. Partial blockage, slow suffocation, meant whether or not the child lived or died would entirely rest on them. Part of this job was dealing with death; the absolute hell of this job was the risk that the death would be your fault. _Oh Allah, have mercy and grant us wisdom,_ Joe prayed over and over.

The weatherbeaten house crouched behind a six-foot chain link fence with patchy grass and an elderly Hispanic woman on the porch waving at them as they pulled into the driveway. She was so tiny and old she couldn’t even stand up straight. 

“My baby,” she wept, “my baby.”

Joe had to run to catch up to Nicky.

“Ma’am, where is the baby?” Nicky asked her. 

Slowly, bones creaking with arthritis and age, the woman turned to lead them into the house. Joe wanted to leapfrog over her. 

“I’ve had him since he was a puppy,” she said. “His name is Chippy.”

Now that they were inside the house, Joe could hear something big flopping around.

At the doorway to the kitchen, he and Nicky stopped and exchanged a look. Chippy was a Rottweiler who likely outweighed his distraught owner. There was a fair amount of saliva and blood on the floor. The huge dog fought something it couldn’t engage with, twisting and leaping and running into the cabinets. Joe looked back at the elderly little woman. Tears were dripping off her face unnoticed and her eyes were red. 

“What did he swallow?” Nicky asked.

“A T-bone steak. He usually knows to gnaw on them, but he swallowed this one whole.”

Nicky looked at him, and Joe knew the two of them were about to become emergency veterinarians. They pulled on latex gloves.

“Do you want to pry his jaws open or shove your hand down his throat?” Nicky asked.

Nice of Nicky to give him the choice. “I’ll pry his jaws open.”

That meant immobilizing Chippy. Which meant tackling Chippy and pinning him down. Joe wrestled the animal to the ground, the traction of his boots on the smeared linoleum giving him the edge he needed. It took all his body weight to keep Chippy still while his hands grabbed his jaws and pried them apart. He was now spooning a ninety-pound Rottweiler who was hyped up on the adrenaline of dying. Nicky was going to pull out that steak and all Chippy’s adrenaline was going to have to go somewhere. 

Joe realized he had no exit strategy.

Nicky crouched in front of them and plunged his hand into the dog’s mouth. 

Keeping Chippy’s jaws open was an interesting isometric exercise, one using tricep muscles that Joe was previously unfamiliar with.

“I can touch it but not pull it out,” Nicky said.

Joe grunted.

Nicky got forceps out of his bag and went back in.

Joe decided he needed to add band pulls to his workout routine.

Chippy’s tail thumped on the linoleum.

“I’ve got it!” Nicky announced at the same time Chippy’s body convulsed, dislodging Joe.

“Run!” Joe hollered, rolling to his feet and grabbing Nicky by the collar of his shirt as he scrabbled to pick up his bag. 

They stopped on the porch. Chippy was not chasing them. In fact, from inside the house they could hear happy whines and yelps, and an elderly voice crooning baby talk in Spanish.

Joe looked over at Nicky to confirm that all that actually just happened and noticed that Nicky was somehow still holding the forceps with a sizable steak mangled on the end. Joe scratched his head. Nicky looked at Joe, looked at the steak, looked around the yard, and then walked over to the garbage can and shook the steak off into the trash.

~###~

The next couple of hours were less eventful. Dispatch called in a report of a man with abdominal pain. When they pulled up to the apartment building, Nicky went to retrieve the stretcher before they had even found the patient, much less assessed his condition. “Mr. Ehler likes the stretcher,” he explained to Joe, which explained nothing.

Mr. Ehler complained about everything, but didn’t seem to be in much pain. He obviously knew Nicky, was grumpy that Nile wasn’t with him, accused Nicky of making the stretcher straps too tight, demanded to know if Joe ever surfed the Internet while working a shift and taking taxpayer money, lectured them about the evils of the Internet, wanted to know if he could borrow sunglasses for the trip from the door of the apartment building to the ambulance, summarized everything wrong with politics and the world, and was grousing about his ungrateful children when Joe stopped the ambulance in front of his chiropractor’s office. The only word Nicky spoke to him was to look up his work schedule and tell Mr. Ehler when he would be working in four weeks.

“Taxi service?” Joe asked when Nicky got back in the front seat.

Nicky nodded.

“He schedules his chiropractor appointments to match your work schedule?”

“I listen to him. I guess one of the other medics yelled at him to shut up once.”

Joe could sympathize with that other medic. He also thought Nicky would have made a really good priest, but he didn’t say that.

They got burgers and fries for lunch. Joe found out that Nicky liked vanilla milkshakes and despised American ketchup. They compared memories of family feasts and favorite childhood foods. Nicky simply raised an eyebrow when Joe mentioned liking pineapple on pizza. When prodded, Nicky admitted that Nile also put pineapple on pizza and he was willing to still be friends with her. 

“Don’t put barbecue sauce on pizza, Joe, don’t test me that far,” Nicky said.

“That’s your line you won’t cross?”

The dispatch call signal buzzed. “Eight-oh-six, we have a man down at 8934 Marling Heights. The patient is not breathing - possible drug overdose.”

That was a posh neighborhood. Joe flipped on the sirens while Nicky hung over the back of the seat, pulling the drug bag out of its compartment. 

At the house, the driveway was full of late model SUVs so Joe drove onto the lawn and stopped right in front of the porch, landscaping be damned. A big blonde youth wearing a t-shirt and sweats stood under the fancy brick archway on the porch. 

“I don’t know anything!” the young man announced.

“Did you call 911?” Nicky asked him in that calm voice that would be appropriate for asking a store clerk where to find the canned beans. “What’s your name?”

“Uh, yeah, I’m Casey. I don’t know what happened.”

Rather than try to get information out of Casey, Nicky pushed past him into the house. Joe followed. Casey latched onto Joe instead and poured out his insistence that he had no idea what happened, or who was involved, or even why he called 911. The fear of an arrest was so thick that Joe could practically smell it. 

“I found your friend,” Nicky called from the bowels of the house.

Joe followed Nicky’s voice to a bathroom where another doughy young white man lay motionless on the floor. He wasn’t really white anymore - the asphyxiation turned his skin blue. Nicky was clearing his airway of vomit and saliva with the suction unit. Joe stepped into the bathroom to maneuver around them to pick up the shaving bag on the floor under the window. 

“What did he take?” Nicky asked.

“I don’t know man! I’m telling you, I don’t know anything!” Casey insisted.

Joe opened the shaving bag, revealing needles and powder. Joe would guess heroin. Their drug bag was stocked with Narcan, but the tricky thing about treating an overdose was deciding how much Narcan to use. Narcan totally removes the drug from the patient’s system. If their patient was a casual user, he needed a dose size that would cause seizures if he was a daily user. 

“Joe, take over the airway,” Nicky said. 

Joe took over the suction bag. 

Nicky stood up to talk to Casey. “Your friend is dead. I could probably do something to bring him back if I knew what happened. If he stays dead, the police must come. But if we know what’s wrong and we can treat him, we take him to the hospital and we don’t need to call the police. You see?”

Damn. Catholic priests had hella crazy confession techniques.

Casey spilled everything. Joe didn’t really need to know about the girls they picked up last night or about stealing the cash from his dad’s wallet. The important part was that the patient only did heroin once or twice a month. Nicky got the IV started and drew up the Narcan dose. Joe tossed the suction bag and grabbed the patient’s wrists to immobilize them as Nicky depressed the plunger, sending the Narcan into the patient’s vein.

One alligator, two alli-

“FUUUUUUCK!” the patient yelled, jerking up like he’d stepped on a wasp nest. 

Once he was sure the patient wasn’t going to have a seizure or attack them, Joe let go of his wrists.

Casey burst into tears.

~###~

The next dispatch call wasn’t dispatch at all. It was Andy telling them that Lykon was going to cover the rest of Nile’s shift and Joe should get his ass home and get some rest before he went on duty.

“I didn’t know Lykon had EMT training,” Joe said.

“He finished the training last week,” Nicky said. “We’ve talked many times since his anxiety attack.”

“And he thought EMT training was a way to reduce his anxiety?” Joe asked drily.

Nicky studied Joe and then realized he was joking and gave him a faint smile. He just nodded, and Joe was reminded that Nicky didn’t repeat things people said to him. He wouldn’t get a word out of Nicky about why Lykon had an anxiety attack and why he signed up for EMT training.

Damn, he was so in love with this guy.

Back at the fire station, Nicky followed Joe into the locker room. They were comparing favorite sports teams and Nicky was complaining about Americans calling soccer football. Joe thought that was a fair point, actually. He unbuttoned his uniform shirt, watching Nicky follow the movement with his eyes, and shrugged out of it, leaving his torso bare. Nicky took a deep breath and suddenly the emotion and fun of the day peaked in Joe’s body and he craved Nicky’s touch to solidify the bond that was growing stronger between them.

“I want to kiss you,” Nicky said, one hand hovering over Joe’s chest, waiting for permission.

“I thought we weren’t going to make out today,” Joe said, possibly the stupidest thing he’d ever said in his life.

“In the ambulance, Joe,” Nicky clarified, “we’re not going to make out in the ambulance.”

“Okay then,” Joe said.

Nicky set a hand on Joe’s chest, took his chin in his other hand to hold him in place, and _kissed_ him. Nicky was not kissing him as a prelude to something else. No, this kiss was the main event and Joe’s mouth was the starring role, the focus of everything Nicky wanted. Nicky explored his mouth, nipped at his bottom lip, then licked his way in and proceeded to explore every sensuous twist and turn of Joe’s tongue and mouth. 

Joe’s hands came up to cling on to Nicky’s forearms. Nicky shifted position, tipping his head, his “mmm” pleasantly filling his ears the way Nicky’s tongue was filling his mouth. He had a deep, buttery voice, slick with promises of things to come. Joe wanted it poured all over him in filthy whispers.

Too soon, Nicky released his mouth, hovered close, and then eased away. Unwilling to let the moment end, Joe clamped an arm around Nicky’s waist and held him in place, the fabric of Nicky’s uniform brushing against his bare chest. He put his other hand at Nicky’s waist, fingered the hem of his uniform shirt, and then slipped a warm hand under the fabric and set it against Nicky’s skin. 

At Nicky’s “mmm,” Joe slowly slid his hand higher, listening to Nicky’s breathing. His skin started to pebble with goosebumps, his hands lightly on Joe’s shoulders. He bowed his head so his forehead rested lightly against Joe’s cheek. Joe traced Nicky’s ribs, thumb stroking the line where his rib cage gave way to the soft skin of his stomach. Nicky’s breath jerked, which made the skin under Joe’s hand twitch. Joe turned his head and stroked his scruff lightly against Nicky’s ear, just enough to tickle. Other than the ragged breathing, Nicky held perfectly still, letting Joe touch him. Joe slid his hand off his stomach and onto his ribs, then lightly traced circles with his thumb on Nicky’s nipple. 

Nicky’s hands tightened on his shoulder, breathing out with a long “oooohh.”

“Are you going to suck me like that this weekend?” Joe whispered.

Nicky swallowed. Joe felt the movement of Nicky’s throat against his cheek. “If you want.”

“I want.” Joe had never wanted anything more in his life, actually. “My place.”

“Yes,” Nicky said. Then he was out of Joe’s grasp and by the door. “I have to get back to work.”

Joe smiled at him. Nicky smiled back. 

Then he was gone.

Joe bounced on the balls of his feet.

* * *

Out of uniform, Nicky dressed for comfort only, Joe decided when Nicky arrived Saturday afternoon. He wore a shapeless gray t-shirt that had been washed so many times that the logo had faded to the point that it would require an archaeologist to reconstruct it, and jeans with frayed seams. 

After evaluating every item in his closet, Joe had picked out a stretchy blue shirt that hugged his muscles and complemented his brown skin and black hair and paired it with the jeans he’d spent way too much money on yesterday. Nicky set down a bottle of iced tea and Joe fantasized about what he could do to Nicky with some hair gel. Joe had hair gel. Joe had a shocking amount of hair product.

“You look really good,” Nicky said in his quiet voice.

Every dollar he’d spent on his jeans was worth it. Joe preened, an offer to style Nicky’s hair on his lips, when he noticed Nicky plucking at the hem of his t-shirt, looking at it like he just now realized he might be wearing the wrong thing.

Joe had a two second fantasy in which Keane mocked Nicky and suggested he put gel in his hair and Joe punched him out and told Nicky to never change a single thing about his hair or the way he dressed.

Fantasy concluded, Joe grinned at him and said, “you look pretty fucking fine yourself.”

They made awkward small talk for a few minutes, sitting down on the couch with snacks and drinks and finding something to watch. Well, more like something to ignore once they got down to the real reason Nicky was at his apartment, but it gave them something to talk about. Was it supposed to be this awkward? Maybe if they were teenagers, Nicky would have launched himself at Joe as soon as the door shut and they would have ripped each other's clothes off and would be having a two-person orgy right now.

Once they settled on a soccer game, Joe put an arm around Nicky’s shoulders and tugged on him until he leaned against him. Joe had been expecting Nicky to take the lead, since he was the more sexually experienced one, but rethinking what Nicky had said last week, Joe realized that a teenage sex spree fueled by self-hatred probably didn’t mean Nicky had a lot of positive experience with sex. 

What’s more awkward than a gay guy trying to have a boyfriend for the first time in his thirties? Two gay guys trying to have a boyfriend for the first time in their thirties. Joe decided that the teenager who had dumped Nicky the instant they got outed didn’t count as a boyfriend.

Joe tugged on Nicky until he turned to face him. He brushed a thumb over Nicky’s mole and then kissed him - a gentle, welcoming kiss to break the ice. Nicky kissed him back politely. Joe let it go and watched the game, a hand stroking Nicky’s arm idly.

“Joe?” Nicky said finally, “I’ll suck you off if you want, but please don’t come in my mouth. I don’t like the taste.”

Joe wondered if he’d presumed too much to assume that Nicky wanted to suck his cock the way he’d sucked his tongue. That ‘if you want’ offer wasn’t very enthusiastic.

“You know what I want to do?” Joe asked. “I want to hold you, make out, find out what we’re both comfortable with. I want you to tell me everything you don’t like so I can avoid it. Tell me what you do like.”

“I’m not very adventurous,” Nicky confessed. “I’m more stodgy.” Nicky said the word ‘stodgy’ like he was repeating a word he’d heard somebody say but had never used himself.

What had teenage Nicky gone through? And what had post-priest Nicky gone through?

“Glad to hear it,” Joe replied. “I watch gay porn and predict when they’re going to throw their back out. Once, the whole fire department got dispatched because someone needed an extrication in a medical emergency and it was this guy handcuffed to the bed when he threw out his back. The other guy lost the key down behind the dresser and called us instead of moving the dresser.”

Nicky snorted and then laughed out loud.

“We didn’t laugh until we got back in the truck,” Joe said, eyebrow quirked.

Nicky laughed harder.

That broke the ice finally. They compared stories of sex calls. Joe threw in one when a woman called the fire department and then met them at the door in a negligee and offered to service all of them. That progressed to laughing at ridiculous porn set-ups, in which Nicky managed to tell Joe several things he didn’t like. Hmm, yeah, Nicky was definitely closer to stodgy than adventurous.

When the stories finally wound down, they mutually agreed on the stodgiest sex they could think of - handjobs with condoms. Most of Nicky’s dislikes involved come, both the taste and the mess. But once Joe convinced Nicky that he was absolutely fine with it, and would never think less of him for being stodgy, the sensuous kisser from the locker room came back and pushed Joe down on the couch and took over his mouth. 

Joe got them to the bed. Nicky had a pocketful of condoms. The whole process involved some laughter, questions about what felt good, Joe reminding Nicky to take his socks off, and the sweetest cuddle in the afterglow. Nicky worked his fingers into Joe’s curls and massaged his scalp. Joe was already pleasantly boneless, and having his head rubbed was rather like melting him down and pouring him out on the bed.

About an hour later, when Joe’s body had reconstituted, Nicky asked, “was that okay?”

“You know what that felt like, Nicky? That felt like a really good beginning.”

“You still want to date me?”

Joe reached out and held the back of Nicky’s neck. “Let’s get our schedules out and figure out all the days we've got off at the same time for the next six months. Will that convince you?”

Joe had meant it as a figure of speech, but Nicky took him literally. They sat next to each other on the bed, completely naked, and planned out their schedules for the next six months. 

The rest of the afternoon and evening involved takeout, lots of conversation and laughter, Joe’s first Italian lesson, Nicky’s questions about Islam, stories about siblings, and comparing playlists. 

“Do you want to stay the night?” Joe was tucked under Nicky’s arm, his head on Nicky’s chest while they watched a movie.

“Yeah.” Nicky shoved another handful of popcorn into his mouth.

They finished the movie. It turned out Nicky had brought a toothbrush and pajamas. Joe chewed on the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing and didn’t say anything but Nicky said it anyway. “I wouldn’t have told you that I brought a toothbrush if you didn’t invite me to stay.”

Joe would be hard-pressed to come up with anything cuter than Nicky explaining his toothbrush strategy. He kissed him soundly on the mouth and gave him the first turn in the bathroom. 

Nicky’s sleep t-shirt was even more worn than the one he’d been wearing most of the afternoon. Joe wondered if Nicky’s sleep shirts went through a decades-long selection process, and when a beloved t-shirt finally got too worn to wear in public, it was retired to the pajama drawer to live out the rest of its threadbare life in peace. Joe sometimes wore a t-shirt to bed, but tonight he wore basketball shorts and nothing else. Nicky traced the swell of his pecs and the ab muscles that he couldn’t resist flexing because Nicky’s finger tickled.

“Very nice,” Nicky murmured. “You run stairs with ninety pounds strapped on your back, don’t you?”

“We all do that,” Joe said. He ran five to ten miles a day with a thirty-pound weight vest, then ran stairs with the ninety pound pack. His firefighter gear was about ninety pounds; their grueling workouts were a matter of survival.

“And on you, it looks so very, very good,” Nicky said. 

Joe let his hands wander over Nicky as well, getting used to his body, finally pulling him in to spoon him, nose in the back of Nicky’s neck. It felt right - comfortable and solid.

Which is why it hit him so hard when that phantom sadness reached out to seize him, holding him as hard as he held Nicky. He must be going crazy. There was no reason for him to feel this way. The sadness punched a crater through the whole thing and pinned Joe down while all the joy drained away. Joe clung tighter and tighter to Nicky, trying to physically recapture the happiness of the afternoon.

“Joe? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, fine, just really glad you’re here.”

“If you say so,” Nicky said uncertainly.

It was not a sin for a Muslim to lie to a Catholic ex-priest, Joe insisted to himself.

* * *

The next three months yanked Joe along on an emotional roller coaster. He floated with the excitement of having a boyfriend. The relationship with Nicky got better and better. That schedule turned out to be a great idea - there wasn’t any awkwardness about asking to spend time together; it was on their calendars. It turned out that Nicky was that methodical in many areas of his life. Joe decided that he really liked the fact that Nicky only laughed out loud when he was with Joe and Nile; he had his own private version of Nicky.

They had deep conversations, cooked together, Joe figured out how to read the Salvador Dali clock, they left toothbrushes at each others’ places. Even the sex progressed past handjobs. Still nothing adventurous, but Joe realized he didn’t care. Nicky gasping and breathless, with flushed cheeks and clutching hands, was all Joe wanted.

And yet the happier he got, the more it punched him in the gut when that sadness grabbed him. It seemed to arrive just when things were going great. He let Nile talk him into taking an art class with her - and after the first evening geeking out with an entire class about pencils he went home and actually cried with the despair. Nicky started experimenting with couscous recipes after Joe casually mentioned his Tunisian grandma cooked with couscous a lot, and every time they ate it Joe got so emotionally heavy it felt like eating lead. 

There was so much good in his life. The sadness didn’t make any sense. Joe googled symptoms of depression, but couldn’t make it fit the odd ups and downs he was experiencing. It wasn’t pervasive sadness; he still enjoyed things and had normal days. It was like being a kid at a playground, knowing the bully could show up any time, but trying to have fun on the swings until he got pushed off. Joe started to clench up emotionally when he was especially happy, bracing himself for the inevitable punishment.

Nights with Nicky brought on the sadness nearly every time. Joe kept trying to pass it off as the lassitude in the afterglow. Nicky didn’t push him to talk when Joe said he was just sleepy, but Joe didn’t think Nicky totally believed him either. He talked about everything else with Nicky, but this was too random. Besides, it was insulting. How could he tell Nicky that he got sad every time they spent time together? Nicky would probably think Joe was disappointed with their sex life, and that wasn’t it at all. 

“Are you worried about us dating because of work?” Nicky asked one night. They were at Nicky’s place, where they typically spent nights after Joe and Nile’s art class. Nicky was propped up on an elbow, tracing a finger along Joe’s cheekbones and nose. 

“It’s not technically against the rules. If we were both firefighters, that would be a problem.” If they were both firefighters, someone would have to request a transfer. A firefighter and medic dating wasn’t great, but it wasn’t as bad.

“That’s not exactly what I meant. I know Booker still teases you about me being your boyfriend and you don’t like it.”

How would Nicky know that? He and Nile rarely hung out in the stationhouse, not since the soccer game all those months ago. Maybe Lykon had said something? Joe knew Nicky would never say.

Oh shit, did Nicky think Joe was ashamed that they were dating?

“I love being your boyfriend. Booker teases me about everything and I hate it, but I love being your boyfriend.” 

“You’re not ashamed of . . . us?”

Nicky’s eyes were wide and questioning.

Joe tried to draw Nicky down into a hug but Nicky resisted. “No, not at all. I’m not ashamed of dating you. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me. Booker rags on me about everything. I don’t think we should make a big announcement at work or anything - it might make things awkward for Andy if she had her face rubbed in it and had to decide if we were breaking rules. So yeah, I wish Booker would shut up, but that’s all it is.”

Nicky didn’t look completely reassured, but he nodded and let Joe pull him down to rest against his chest.

Joe closed his eyes and resolved to do better at hiding his intermittent sadness. What else could he do? He couldn’t picture himself telling Nicky: _after sex I feel like I should hide; during art class I’m just waiting for someone to mock me; being happy with you makes me afraid that I’ll be punished; I feel so alone when you ask me about Islam or try to cook like my grandma does; I don’t want to share my family’s culture with you and I don’t know why; Booker used to annoy me but now I outright hate him; the more I get attached to you the more I feel like I’m coming unmoored._

Nicky’s breathing evened out.

Joe stared at the ceiling.

* * *

Being a firefighter wasn’t all about danger and rescues. Some of it was about dozens of little kids coming to the station on school field trips and alternating between hero worship and bathroom breaks. No one liked the clean-the-bathroom chore after a field trip.

As station engineer, Keane should be the one to explain the fire truck to the kids, but Keane didn’t like kids. Merrick told Joe to do it, which was fine, but he wished Booker hadn’t invited himself along. Not only was Joe pissed at Booker right now (he’d just made a crack about Joe needing a double bed in the station when Nicky was on duty), but he kept boring the kids with long explanations about the difference between a fire engine and a fire truck. Seven-year-olds didn’t care about that - they just wanted to sit in the firefighter seat while the parent chaperones took pictures. Booker was wasting their time.

Across the garage, Nicky and Nile explained the ambulance and some basic first aid to another group of children. A third group of children followed Andy around the station while she pointed out the dayroom, the kitchen, the laundry and tried to answer questions. Kids this age were more likely to tell you a random story than ask a question. Andy encouraged this because it left less time for more kids to ask questions. A fourth group of children watched Merrick get dressed in turnout gear while Lykon explained what he was wearing.

Joe plucked a girl off the footboard before she could touch the pump panel and cause Keane an aneurysm. Then he broke into Booker’s monologue about hose capacity to say, “who wants to sit in the firefighter seat?”

The kids lined up, some bouncing in excitement, some with folded arms and shushing their classmates. 

One boy sneered, “this isn’t even cool! It’s not like you fight aliens!”

“If aliens come to earth, I promise you that someone will call 911, and we’ll get sent out to deal with it,” Joe said solemnly.

“We should call 911 for aliens?” another boy asked.

“Obviously,” a girl said, rolling her eyes, “everyone knows you can’t really call Ghostbusters.”

That prompted a spontaneous outburst of kids singing the Ghostbusters theme song, complete with dance moves, which confused Joe until he remembered the movie had gotten a reboot a few years ago.

“When’s the last time you fought a fire?” a girl asked Joe.

“There was a brush fire just outside of town last week,” Joe said.

The boy who thought they were lame for not fighting aliens just said, “huh.”

Joe reached deeper. “A couple weeks ago, there was a chemical spill on the freeway and they sent three fire engines to make sure it didn’t catch fire.”

“So there _wasn’t_ a fire,” alien boy clarified.

“There wasn’t a fire,” Joe admitted. Structural fires weren’t everyday occurrences, but he didn’t know how to explain safety and building codes to second graders.

“My mom set the toast on fire but she wouldn’t let us call you!” pump panel girl announced.

“My mom would call him,” Ghostbusters girl countered. “My mom thinks he’s hot enough to be on fire himself.”

Joe’s mind blanked out as he wondered if a seven-year-old was hitting on him.

“Eww,” said little alien boy.

“Mom!” Ghostbusters girl hollered. “You think he’s hot, right! You said so and Jake said ‘eww’!”

One of the chaperones taking pictures of kids in the firefighter seat turned around. “Honey, let’s not repeat everything mom says, okay? Yes, he’s hot as blazes, but if we say so while he’s at work, that’s sexual harassment, and we don’t want to do that.”

The other parent chaperone said something Joe couldn’t hear, but it made Ghostbuster girl’s mom laugh with her lips pressed together and then wink at Joe.

“Too bad you’re taken, right Joe?” Booker said too loudly, with a mighty slap on the back.

“Of course he is,” said Ghostbuster girl’s mom.

“Who took you?” pump panel girl asked.

“Oh look, it’s your turn in the seat!” Joe said.

“No it isn’t! It’s my turn!” alien boy insisted, which was true.

“See that guy over there at the ambulance,” Booker said to pump panel girl, turning to point at Nicky who was lifting a child down from the stretcher. “That’s who took him.”

“Of course he is,” Ghostbuster girl’s mom said again, with a sigh this time.

Alien boy gave Joe a puzzled look, just as the camera flashed. “But he’s a guy too.”

“And that’s perfectly fine,” Ghostbuster girl’s mom insisted. She turned to Joe. “I am so sorry.”

“Kids,” Joe said with a shrug. “No worries.”

“My dad says it’s not!” alien boy said.

“Buddy, you’re done,” the other parent chaperone said. She lifted him down from the firefighter seat and bodily escorted him over to the group watching Merrick demo the mask.

Ghostbuster girl’s mom apologized again and again Joe told her not to worry about it.

When the group rotated away, Booker shrugged and said, “huh, that was weird.”

“Booker, could you maybe shut up? Just once in a while?” Joe pleaded.

Booker gave him a quizzical look, like it never occurred to him to shut up once in a while. Joe walked a few steps away and sat on the front bumper. He let Booker ramble on about hose sizes as long as he wanted this time, which meant several kids didn’t have time to get their picture taken in the firefighter seat. 

Across the room, Joe saw a parent chaperone walking alien boy away from the ambulance. Nicky watched the boy with a puzzled look and then looked over to find Joe. Joe gave him a small wave and a shrug. Nicky nodded back. Alien boy left the fire station with the chaperone.

After the field trip buses pulled away from the station, Andy tapped Joe on the shoulder. “You. Come with me.” 

Joe followed her. She paused near the ambulance to tap Nicky on the shoulder too. Joe and Nicky exchanged glances and followed Andy into her office. Andy shut the door. Andy never shut the door. Joe and Nicky exchanged another glance. None of them sat down.

Andy sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “I’m supposed to tell you how sorry they are about that loudmouthed brat.”

Shit. If they accepted the apology, that was as good as confirming they were a couple and that forced Andy to deal with dating in the workplace. But if Joe didn’t confirm they were a couple, Nicky might think that Joe was ashamed of their relationship.

Andy kept going. “Don’t tell me anything. No romance at work, you understand? Keep it out of the station. Don’t even make googly eyes at each other at work.”

“Yes boss,” Joe said.

“Yes boss,” Nicky said.

“If you make out in the storeroom, you will clean the bathroom after every school field trip for the next five years, you understand?”

“Yes boss.”

“Yes boss.”

“I’d order you to break up, but Quynh thinks you’re adorable.”

They looked at each other, looked back at Andy, and then chorused, “Yes boss.”

“Oh my god, you are adorable. Get the fuck out of my office.”

Joe and Nicky got the fuck out of her office.

Joe never found out if Andy talked to Booker too, but Booker stopped teasing him about Nicky. Having the rule set down that they couldn’t act like a couple at work also helped. When the medics joined the firefighters for spaghetti night, Nicky sat with Lykon, with just a nod at Joe. Nile talked to Joe more at work than Nicky did, which drew Joe into Dizzy and Jay’s social circle as well. They were funny and friendly and reminded him of his little sister in all the best ways. The most obvious thing for Joe and Nile to talk about was their art class. Dizzy took to handing Joe a pencil and paper and asking him to sketch random things like faces in tree bark. It turned into a game with all of them to see what Joe would come up with in response to their prompts. And if every so often, one of Joe’s sketches turned out to resemble Nicky, and it got folded and stuffed into Nicky’s locker, no one ever said anything about it.

* * *

Joe was on his way to the stationhouse laundry room when he heard Nile’s laugh and Nicky’s voice in the kitchen. He could stop and say hi after he changed out the laundry. A month ago, Andy said googly eyes were off limits, but nothing said they couldn’t talk to each other on the rare occasions that Nicky and Nile ate at the station. The firefighters cooked together for breakfast and dinner, but lunch typically meant scrounging leftovers out of the fridge. Joe had every right to get lunch while Nicky just happened to be in the kitchen too.

After changing the laundry, Joe was almost to the kitchen when he saw Booker approaching. Damn. Booker would probably follow him into the kitchen and say something awkward. Now that Andy had apparently banned him from teasing Joe about Nicky, Booker had ramped up the Muslim-themed teasing and was also back to calling Joe ‘shorty.’ Joe was six feet tall, dammit. Booker only had two inches on him. The only other guy in the firehouse as tall as Booker was Keane, but Booker didn’t call anyone else shorty.

Should he just walk past the kitchen? He could always double back later, if it turned out Booker wasn’t going to the kitchen. When Joe heard Merrick’s voice in the kitchen, he thought Nicky and Nile must have left and decided to wait for lunch. So when he heard Nile’s voice in the kitchen and realized Nicky and Nile were both in there with Merrick, Joe had to take a sharp right.

“Forget where you were going, Joe?” Booker said, catching up to him.

Nicky was holding a mostly-eaten plate of pasta, standing next to Nile, who was at the sink washing a mug. He looked a bit sick to his stomach. Keane and Merrick were seated at the table with plates of food, sharing a laugh.

“Hey, guys,” Booker greeted everyone. Everyone ignored him.

Joe looked from Nicky to Keane and Merrick and wondered what he’d just missed. “Everything okay?” he asked Nicky.

“I’m fine, nothing is wrong,” Nicky said quickly. He scraped the rest of his pasta into the garbage and put his dishes in the dishwasher.

“Stop looking at us like that, Joe,” Merrick said with a snap in his voice. “If you’ve got a problem, say something.”

Nicky was concentrating too hard on his plate; Keane watched contemptuously; Nile had her lips pressed together. Joe had a sudden flashback to his two older brothers ganging up on him and daring him to say something, knowing that if he did, they’d attack him. 

Nicky shut the dishwasher and very carefully didn’t make eye contact with Keane when he turned around. Instead, he took Nile’s elbow and steered both of them to the door.

“Look, I know you’re pissed that Nicky corrected you when you were treating Lykon that one day, but you already flattened him at the soccer game and that was months ago, so maybe let it go now, alright?” Joe blurted out, then waited for the attack.

“We actually weren’t talking about that,” Keane said in a patronizing tone.

Joe interrupted. “I don’t care what you were talking about - that thing with Lykon is why you don’t like him and it’s stupid so cut it out.” He was going to die, so he may as well make it worth it.

“Nicky was right and you were wrong. Suck it up, Keane.” 

That comment came from Booker.

Joe instantly forgave Booker for every teasing remark he’d ever spoken and every remark he was going to make for the next six months.

Keane shrugged, took a bite of food, and then said something to Merrick about the home remodeling he was doing. Merrick started talking about a sale at Home Depot.

Nicky caught Joe’s eye and, without changing anything in his expression, managed to convey deep gratitude. Then he and Nile left.

Booker handed Joe a couple containers from the fridge and the four of them talked about paint brands and sanding techniques for the next hour.

* * *

Nicky seemed a little bit off all afternoon. Not enough for anyone else to notice, but Joe prided himself on being a bit of an expert about Nicky by now.

“You alright?”

Nicky did that thing where his cheek twitched and he looked away and nodded at the same time. It was a brushoff, not an answer.

Joe got out of the car and took a running step to catch up with Nicky. They were on their way back to Joe’s apartment to pick up ingredients to take to Nicky’s place to make dinner with Nile. 

“Is this about me telling Keane to fuck off yesterday?” Joe prodded. “What did he say to you before I got there?”

“It’s not important.”

Joe wanted to push it, but he also knew that he dodged Nicky’s questions about being alright when Nicky sensed Joe’s moods. If he pushed too hard at Nicky right now, Nicky might push back when Joe wanted him to back off instead. He would have dropped it, so he was relieved when Nicky kept talking.

“Thank you for . . . yesterday,” Nicky said. “I’ve been trying to avoid him as much as I can.”

Joe was still floating on the adrenaline of having stood up to Keane and Merrick. “Sometimes you gotta have the hard conversations.” 

“That confrontation went fine,” Nicky agreed. “It was good that Booker stepped in when you needed him.”

Joe wanted to say that he didn’t need Booker’s help, but the truth was that Merrick liked Booker and Keane sucked up to Merrick, so Booker’s support probably had tipped Keane away from flashing back at Joe. 

“You don’t do confrontations, do you?” Joe asked. It wasn’t a criticism - Joe didn’t do confrontations either, at least not before yesterday - he just wanted to keep Nicky talking.

“I have had confrontations go very badly. Some confrontations I wish I had been able to avoid.” Nicky started pulling vegetables out of Joe’s fridge.

Right. The whole family and priest thing.

“I’m not good at confrontations. Yesterday was the first time in my life I ever confronted anyone and didn’t want to throw up afterwards,” Joe confessed. He turned around from the pantry with a box of pasta in his hand and nearly ran into Nicky.

Nicky took the pasta from Joe and added it to the bag.

“Some day, I really want to stand up to my brothers,” Joe went on.

That made Nicky look up from his search through Joe’s spice rack. “What makes you think that could ever go well?”

Joe shrugged. “Maybe they would respect me if I stopped letting them push me around.”

“Are your brothers the sort to respect people?” Nicky asked quietly.

Joe had said enough about his brothers that they both knew the answer to that question.

“Maybe I want to stand up to them just to prove I can do it,” Joe backtracked.

Nicky added the spices to the grocery bag.

“Do you think I should stand up to them?” Joe asked.

“I wish with all my heart and soul that I had not needed to tell my family anything. I knew it couldn’t end well, and I wish I could have had a bit of a connection with them than nothing at all.”

Nicky had talked about this before. Because he’d had to come out (a second time) when he left the priesthood, everyone in his family had been forced to take sides, and they’d all chosen against him. Nicky cherished a misty thought that his older sister might have been willing to ignore his sexuality if she’d had that chance. It wouldn’t have been a strong and nourishing relationship, but at least it would have been something.

Joe still had something with his family. Probably some of them suspected the truth, but if he never said anything, the don’t-ask-don’t-tell could make it possible for him to go home during Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr, and be at his brother’s wedding. He couldn’t picture his mother standing up to his father; he couldn’t picture his father being anything other than contemptuous; he couldn’t picture his older brothers respecting him. His younger brother and sister wouldn’t be able to stand against all that to stand with Joe - and even if they did, all that meant is the family would tear in half instead of just Joe getting thrown out.

“It’s all so pointless. Courage. Self-respect. It doesn’t fix anything.” That wave of sadness slopped over Joe. At least this time he knew what set it off.

Nicky set down the grocery bag, seized Joe’s face in his hands and kissed him fiercely. Joe made a surprised noise against Nicky’s mouth. Nicky backed him up to the wall and plunged into his mouth. Joe’s hands came up and grabbed Nicky’s shirt.

“You don’t talk like that,” Nicky said when he let go of Joe’s mouth. “You hear me? You don’t talk like that!”

Usually, if Joe said something about how he felt, Nicky asked him why he felt that way and then listened carefully. This wasn’t Nicky’s normal response. Joe studied his face until Nicky flushed and looked away.

“What did Keane say to you? Come on, Nicky, this isn’t one of your confessional things you never talk about. Do I have to ask Nile?”

Nicky’s eyes flashed with anger and then he looked down. “He offered to buy me dinner once you got tired of me.”

“Shit, fuck!”

Joe wanted to storm around and wave his arms and yell, but Nicky was collapsing against him, so Joe ended up hugging Nicky instead, seething with anger against Keane. “I am _not_ going to get tired of you and Keane is _never_ buying you dinner.”

Nicky gave him a shaky smile. “That’s nice of you, Joe.”

“It’s not nice; it’s truth,” Joe said forcefully.

Nicky started kissing him again. Joe pressed tightly against him and kissed back. If this is the reassurance that Nicky wanted, then Joe would give him as much as he needed. He hoped that this was what had been bothering Nicky because he could fix this. All that sadness and anger turned into desperation to connect with Nicky, right here and right now. Nicky ground their hips together. Joe seized Nicky’s face, and with a shift of his weight and few steps, switched their positions so Nicky was against the wall. He grabbed Nicky’s arms and pinned them above his head and went savagely for his mouth, wanting to force Nicky to see how much Joe wanted him and would never get tired of him.

At last, Joe broke away from Nicky’s lips. “Tell me you know it’s the truth. I’m not just being nice. You know it’s the truth. Say it!”

Nicky had slouched against the wall so that he was looking up at Joe. With a twist of his mouth and a dip of his eyebrow, suddenly his expression was all bedroom eyes and plump lower lip. “Are you giving me orders?” His voice was silky and sultry.

“Maybe I am.”

“Maybe I could like that.”

Caught off guard, Joe studied Nicky’s face, but all he saw was arousal. Then Nicky’s eyebrow twitched and something in his expression looked like a challenge - one that he was hoping Joe would take him up on.

“Shut your eyes and keep your hands above your head.”

Nicky did as he was told. 

Joe spread his fingers to hold both of Nicky’s wrists with one hand. He slipped the other hand under Nicky’s t-shirt. Nicky loved having his chest rubbed. Joe took his time feeling Nicky up, teasing his nipples, thumbing every rib separately, and then dug the heel of his hand into the soft skin of his belly. Nicky got very quiet when he was enjoying something, but his breathing would get ragged.

“Open your eyes.”

Nicky’s eyes were hazy and soft with desire. 

“I like that. I want you looking at me while I touch you.”

“Yes, Joe.”

Nicky’s obedience jolted Joe right in the crotch. Joe worked at the button and zipper on Nicky’s pants with his free hand. “I like taking you apart, Nicky. I find your reaction to me very gratifying. I’m never going to get tired of that.”

Nicky’s cheeks were getting redder.

Joe reached in and took Nicky’s cock in his hand. He was hard; he was so hard already. Nicky usually needed some stimulation to get to this point. Joe had planned on just fondling him for a few minutes, but Nicky was already close.

“Don’t move.”

“Yes, Joe.”

Joe grabbed a condom and slid it into Nicky while Nicky kept his hands above his head and his eyes open, as instructed. 

“Do you want me to . . .” Nicky started.

Joe cut him off. “I want you to stand there and enjoy this.”

“Yes, Joe.”

“Lick my hand.”

Nicky slathered Joe’s hand with his tongue.

“You’re so good, Nicky,” Joe crooned into Nicky’s ear. He took Nicky’s cock in his wet hand and started to stroke him. “Move your hips if you want. Whatever feels good.”

Nicky started to fuck Joe’s fist. Joe moved in the rhythm Nicky set.

“So good, Nicky, you’re so good.” Joe ducked his head to suckle at the soft underside of Nicky’s jaw and Nicky whimpered. 

Whatever this was, Nicky apparently needed it. He was aroused himself, but not hard. When he could tell Nicky was getting close, Joe started whispering for him to come, repeating Nicky’s name, telling him how good he was, how perfect, how everything.

Nicky came with a soft cry. Joe let go of his wrists and Nicky clung to him, trembling and shaking much more than Joe would have expected from a handjob against the wall. He folded Nicky up in his arms and kissed down the side of his head, murmuring reassurances and love until Nicky’s climax ran its course. 

Nicky buried his head in Joe’s shoulder, not letting Joe see his face. At last he pulled away, whispered something about cleaning up, and escaped into the bathroom. Joe washed his hands in the kitchen and checked the food in the grocery bag against the list Nile had texted him to kill time while he waited for Nicky.

“I’m ready to go,” Nicky said, coming out of the bathroom and heading straight for the door. 

Joe might have let him get away with that if he wasn’t still worrying about what Keane had said. He caught his arm and waited until Nicky looked at him. “You’re so good, Nicky. I loved it; I love you; you’re so good.”

The pleased and vulnerable look in Nicky’s eyes made Joe think that this was about much more than a handjob against the wall. He smiled at Nicky and then picked up the grocery bag.

Dinner with Nile was as good as it always was, though Nicky’s shy and giddy behavior tonight made Joe wish they were alone so they could figure out what the hell had happened.

After dinner, Nicky walked Joe out to his car. They both went on-shift tomorrow, which meant about two days before they could get together privately again. Joe didn’t want to wait that long to check in with Nicky so he hooked a finger through Nicky’s belt loop and held him in place. 

“Tell me about earlier. Did you like me ordering you around?

Nicky nodded with that faint smile of his.

“Why?”

Nicky shrugged, a bit sheepish. “I just did.”

“I liked it too.”

Then neither one of them said anything further because they didn’t know what to say about that.

Joe pecked Nicky on the cheek and drove home.

* * *

Over the next couple of weeks, Joe didn’t see Nicky and Nile around the stationhouse at all. Keane went out of his way to be decent in Joe’s general direction, which Joe interpreted as Keane’s version of an apology, or at least a grudging suggestion that he wouldn’t be quite such an asshole in the future. 

He wanted to punch Keane in the face for making that comment to Nicky, but he knew Nicky wouldn’t appreciate the drama. Instead, he made a point of mentioning his plans with Nicky when Merrick asked about his day off. Andy said they couldn’t flirt at work, but he could acknowledge the relationship in front of the other guys.

“He’s good for you,” Booker said.

Joe was unable to come up with a reply, having just had the shit shocked out of him. What had Andy said to Booker? Then Booker ruined the effect by ruffling Joe’s hair. Joe reminded himself that he’d forgiven Booker for the next six months in advance and forced himself to smile.

“Would you fucking tell him to knock that off?” Keane demanded of him.

“What?” Joe asked.

Keane took care of it himself. “Get your hands out of his hair. White boy. You’re frizzing his curls.”

“I frizzed your curls? That’s a thing?” Booker asked, genuinely surprised.

“Yeah, that’s a thing,” Joe confirmed.

“Dude. Sorry. Had no idea.”

Booker and Merrick exchanged confused looks.

Joe and Keane exchanged longsuffering looks.

It was probably the friendliest exchange Joe had had with Keane since Lykon’s anxiety attack. 

* * *

“I have something to wear tonight, if you want to see it,” Nicky said in the diffident voice he used when something was important and he didn’t want to say so.

They were at Joe’s apartment tonight. Joe popped a Coke can open. Nicky was wearing his standard floppy t-shirt and soft jeans. Nicky sometimes wore a button down shirt with the sleeves rolled up, which also managed to look as worn and comfortable as a t-shirt. The only other thing Joe had ever seen him wear was his uniform.

“Yeah, sure.” 

“Um, could you shut the curtains and lock the door?”

Joe put an eyebrow up. He set down the Coke can and shut the curtains and threw the deadbolt on the door.

Nicky looked incredibly nervous.

Joe wondered if he should unlock the door so Nicky could make a run for it.

“I’ll be just a minute,” Nicky said. He hurried to the bathroom.

Joe drank Coke.

Nicky came out of the bathroom and Joe’s heart stopped. He wore a leather loincloth, just a flap over his cock and his ass, slung low on his hips, riding the dip of his abdomen. His eyes looked sultry, sexier than usual, and Joe finally identified eyeliner. But the real reason he couldn’t string together a coherent thought to save his life was the collar and chain. It wasn’t much of a chain, maybe eight inches of delicate links tracing a line from the leather collar down the center of Nicky’s chest, but it was a chain. 

“You said you liked giving me orders that one time. I liked it too. I’m not saying it will be like this every night, but if you want to try this tonight, I’m game,” Nicky said.

Joe didn’t have much blood going to his brain at the moment, so it took him a minute to process that. Then he came up with: “okay.”

Nicky fidgeted, and Joe realized he probably ought to do something besides stare. He set down the Coke and approached Nicky, and ran his fingers from Nicky’s shoulders to his fingertips. Then he traced the chain between his pecs and picked it up.

“Tell me your safe words.”

“Yellow if I need you to slow down; red if I need you to stop.”

Joe nodded. He put his other hand against Nicky’s abdomen, just above the loincloth, and gently stroked his belly. Nicky had a bit of softness to his tummy that Joe loved. He pulled on the chain gently, until Nicky swayed towards him and Joe caught his mouth with his own. He kissed him; plundered him; took Nicky’s mouth for everything it could give him. By the time Joe let go, Nicky was panting. Nicky’s arousal wrecked Joe as much as the leather - those flushed cheeks and eyes that promised everything.

“Good, you’re so good, Nicky,” Joe whispered into his ear. “We were going to have dinner first, but now I don’t have an appetite for anything but you.”

“What do you want? Anything you want tonight, Joe. I’m yours.” Nicky pitched his voice low and poured it over Joe like honey.

Joe was already hard. The thought of Nicky’s ass, barely covered by leather, his for the asking, wound him up even more and he clenched a fist and pressed it into the wall above Nicky’s head. He had a sudden vision of Nicky spread-eagled against that wall, wearing nothing but that collar, with Joe’s cock buried in his ass and begging Joe to fuck him harder. 

No. They hadn’t talked about fucking. Four months of dating, and Nicky takes them from stodgy to a collar and loincloth in one evening without even a warning. If he’d wanted Joe to fuck him, he would have brought it up earlier. 

“Suck me off. Use a condom the way you usually do. On your knees. Right here.”

Nicky fell to his knees in front of Joe, or partly. “You’ll have to let go of my chain, Joe.” He set a hand over Joe’s hand that was holding the chain. Joe let go and it swung back down Nicky’s bare chest, letting Nicky get the rest of the way on his knees. 

He leaned against the wall. He was pretty sure his knees were going to turn to jelly at some point in the next few minutes. Nicky undid the button and zipper on his pants and tugged them down, then slid a condom onto Joe’s hardness. He looked up at Joe with a sly smile and Joe nearly collapsed at the sight of Nicky’s eyeliner and chain, kneeling in front of him.

“All I want tonight is your pleasure, Joe,” Nicky said, and then took him into his mouth.

Joe moaned and let Nicky guide his hips. Nicky sucked him the way he kissed him, intense and hot. Joe put his hands in Nicky’s hair and ruffled it up, saying over and over how good it was, how good Nicky was. He kept up the running patter until he came, hands fisted in Nicky’s hair.

When he opened his eyes after that marvelous orgasm, Nicky was seated cross-legged on the floor and leaning back on his elbows, which was the perfect way to showcase the collar, chain and loincloth, looking rather smug. 

“You know how good you are, don’t you?” Joe said.

“You should tell me often.”

Joe bent, grabbed the chain, and pulled on it until Nicky got to his feet. Joe kissed him, and pulled the chain to move his head when he was done. He pinned Nicky’s head against his shoulder and whispered directly into his ear, “You are incredible; you are the hottest piece of ass on the planet and I am together with you until the stars fall out of the sky.”

Nicky hummed contentedly.

“Go start dinner. I’m going to clean up.”

In the bathroom, Joe threw away the condom and sponged off the sweat. He shucked off his shirt, shoes and socks, then traded his trousers for a pair of well-worn jeans that rode low enough on his hips to show off his abs and treasure trail. May as well give Nicky something to look at tonight too. He splashed some water on his face to bring himself back to earth from fantasyland. Something was going on with Nicky. The man who insisted he was stodgy had some reason for dressing up like that without warning. Joe didn’t want to impose on Nicky’s trust or, quite honestly, shut down the chances of Nicky wearing that loincloth and chain again.

He couldn’t shut the thought of fucking Nicky entirely out of his mind. Joe had never fucked or been fucked, and he thought he might like it. He suspected Nicky had fucked, based on something Nicky said about when he was a teenager, but then he’d changed the subject quickly. Because Nicky seemed uncomfortable about it, Joe hadn’t brought up fucking; he was fine with what Nicky called stodgy sex. But maybe Nicky was offering tonight. Maybe. He’d try to read Nicky’s signals. They talked openly enough that Joe wondered why Nicky surprised him with this instead of talking about it first - even just saying he had something sexy to wear instead of letting Joe think Nicky had brought a t-shirt that was new enough the logo was still legible.

When he felt like he had his brain in charge instead of his cock, he went to the kitchen where Nicky was plating takeout. That loincloth that left his hips bare was sexier than total nudity, and then the broad shoulders, collar and eyeliner pushed Joe into arousal again. He leaned against the counter and watched Nicky pour gravy over the meat. 

Watching Nicky’s face for any sign of discomfort, Joe ran a finger from Nicky’s thigh to the bottom of the leather flap over his ass. Nicky’s cheek twitched in a smile, his eyes on the food. Joe ran that finger under the leather and into the cleft of Nicky’s ass. He stepped closer, set his other hand around Nicky’s waist and pulled them into contact, Nicky’s side pressed against Joe’s chest.

“Anything you want tonight,” Nicky repeated, and gave Joe a very direct look.

Joe’s whole body clenched. Nicky was going to let Joe fuck him. He mouthed at Nicky’s ear and suckled his earlobe while Nicky finished with the food.

They didn’t talk much while they ate. Should he be hand-feeding Nicky? Would that be erotic for him or ridiculous? They were eating chicken with cucumber salad, not chocolate dipped strawberries. Joe decided to pass on feeding each other. 

Joe couldn’t stop looking at Nicky, planning out how to sketch the lines of his chest and collar as soon as he could get his hands on pencil and paper, his artist eye roving over Nicky’s body. He’d have to get his expression right too, that eyeliner enhancing the arousal in his eyes. Or that flicker of insecurity. Joe frowned. Nicky was looking at the plate to cut his chicken, but if Joe sketched him at this second, the set of his shoulders would have conveyed insecurity - a man hoping he was doing the right thing without really being sure it was the right thing. Then Nicky looked at him and the expression was arousal and anticipation again. Joe grinned back at him and let it go. Maybe he was just nervous. Joe was nervous. This was as hot as a molten metal fire, but he was still nervous.

After dinner, they talked and kissed and touched, not anything different than what they usually did in their evenings at Joe’s apartment, other than what Nicky was wearing. Nicky had said he wanted to be ordered around, but the thing was, Joe didn’t have fantasies like that. He liked their stodgy sex where they both talked about what they wanted and liked, and Nicky was as likely to tell Joe to do something as vice versa.

Still, Nicky had asked for this, and while Joe wouldn’t have suggested it himself, he had no problem with helping out with Nicky’s fantasy. The longer he watched Nicky in that collar, the more he was looking forward to whatever else was going to happen tonight.

Joe picked up the short chain. “Do you have any idea what this chain does to me?”

“I had ideas when I bought it, yes,” Nicky replied.

“Dance for me.”

Nicky sent a playlist from his phone to Joe’s speakers and flipped off the overhead light, leaving the room dim. Then he started moving in time to the music as Joe dropped onto the couch.

Joe had no idea whether Nicky could dance or not - he’d just wanted to watch him move wearing that getup. But it turned out that Nicky could dance. He undulated his torso, arms behind his head with the chain swinging over his chest, leading with his hips, that leather flap doing filthy things to Joe. Nicky strutted in a circle, letting Joe see him from every angle. 

Joe got up. “Keep dancing,” he instructed Nicky, then he inserted himself into the dance, taking Nicky into his arms from behind and molding his body to Nicky’s, moving with him. He pressed their cheeks together and set a hand flat against Nicky’s abdomen, pinning him tightly against Joe’s front, letting him feel the hard ridge of his erection through that leather flap. 

Nicky pressed back against him. “Is it good, Joe? Am I good?”

“Of course you are, you’re the best,” Joe murmured right into his ear. He almost said something about how much he wanted to fuck Nicky, but then something about Nicky’s plaintive question penetrated the fog of arousal in his mind and he realized why Nicky started this role play tonight. He wondered if Nicky knew what he was doing. “You’re perfect; this is good; this is right,” Joe told him.

Nicky moaned and dropped the back of his head onto Joe’s shoulder, reaching over his own head to catch Joe’s head in his hands. “You want to fuck me, don’t you?”

If Nicky had asked that question 15 seconds earlier, Joe would have said yes, and he would have believed Nicky when he insisted he wanted Joe to fuck him. But knowing why Nicky was doing this changed everything. “No, I don’t. I’m not going to enjoy something unless you’re enjoying it as much as I am. I don’t want to fuck you.” Joe meant every word. 

“I know you want to, Joe.”

The rest of the explanation snapped into place. Keane had told Nicky that Joe was going to get tired of him. 

“We’re not arguing about it right now.” Joe reached under that leather flap and took Nicky’s cock in his hand. “I’m shoving you up against the wall, fucking your thighs not your ass, and jerking you off. And you’re going to like it. Say yes.”

“Yes.”

“Good, you’re so good, Nicky. This is good.” Joe kept up a patter of reassurance and praise as he pressed Nicky against the wall and thrust his hard cock through Nicky’s thighs. 

Joe didn’t bother with a condom for himself because he knew he wasn’t going to come again, not so soon after getting sucked off. Fucking thighs wasn’t enough for Joe to get off in general and he didn’t care about getting off again tonight anymore. He pulled a condom out of his pocket and slid it onto Nicky.

“You don’t have to use that,” Nicky started.

“I want to,” Joe cut him off. 

He was not going to ignore all Nicky’s preferences tonight, even with Nicky’s permission. He caressed Nicky, then set to stroking him off, reaching around him with Nicky still pressed hard to his chest. Joe whispered into his ear, telling Nicky that he was good, this was good and right, they were good together, that he loved him, that they would stay together always. When Joe told Nicky to come, Nicky nodded and then came, as if he really had been waiting for Joe to order him. He gasped and grimaced in a way that was halfway to crying. Joe held him close, still keeping up that murmur of reassurance, until Nicky’s breathing evened out.

Later, after they’d cleaned up and gotten into Joe’s bed, Joe tugged and rearranged Nicky until he submitted to being the little spoon.

“I would have let you fuck me, Joe.” Nicky’s voice had a question in it.

Joe kissed Nicky’s shoulder. “You’re usually the one to get all insightful, Nicky, but I had a thought. Was it really having me order you around that you liked? Or did you like me telling you that you were good? I think you need to hear it, to erase all the times you got told you were sinning and wicked - the times other people said it to you and the times you said it to yourself.”

Nicky stayed quiet, but his hand tightened over Joe’s.

Joe went on. “You are good; it’s good to be sexy and wear leather and chains. I’ll tell you that as often as you want to hear it.”

“But why wouldn’t you fuck me?”

“I worried you would say yes so I would praise you, not because you would enjoy it. I’m not going to enjoy anything you’re not enjoying, Nicky, you can’t ask me to do that. We don’t work that way.”

“We don’t?”

“No, we don’t,” Joe said firmly. 

Nicky huffed out a soft laugh and didn’t answer for a few minutes. Then he said, “I suppose you’re right about why I have such a praise kink. But I know why you like stroking my kink so much.”

“Oh?”

“Because your brothers never said a kind word to you no matter how hard you tried to please them. You are so different, and praising me heals some of the pain of how they treated you.”

Damn Nicky and his verbal harpoons. Sometimes the conversation with him went so deep it felt like being disemboweled.

“Joe? Joe? I didn’t mean to make you cry.” Nicky turned in his arms, until he could get Joe’s head on his shoulder.

“We’re both fucked up, aren’t we?”

“At least we have each other now.”

Joe and Nicky held each other and let their tears start to wash away the decades of pain.

* * *

Joe was back on shift at the fire station, still processing what happened with Nicky the other night, when he realized something he had entirely missed at the time. He hadn’t felt that wash of sadness that night at all. Not a hint, not a whisper of despair. He’d cried together with Nicky, but that was an open and honest grief, acknowledging the pain they were both trying to heal. He felt better after it, pried open and washed clean. It felt good to grieve with Nicky.

Grief.

God, it was grief. How had he not recognized it before? Those waves of sadness he felt were grief, not depression. He was grieving the fact that he couldn’t share his happiness with his family; grieving the death of the hope that his family would accept him; grieving the life he’d always thought he must have. That was why Nicky’s questions about Islam and trying to cook Tunisian foods hurt so much - it reminded Joe of the family that would never fully accept him. That was why he was so scared of being mocked at art class - he still heard his father’s scorn every time he picked up a colored pencil. That was why he felt so much sadness after making love with Nicky - loving Nicky separated him from his family. He was alone in his happiness and that cast a shadow over the joy in his life.

Of course loving Nicky was making him come unmoored. To love Nicky, he had to let go of everything else.

Grief is part of letting go.

Joe sat in the stationhouse’s small library at the table with a chemistry book open in front of him and let the realization wash over him and soak in. He wasn’t going crazy; he was sad. Coming out was a life transition, and it hurt as much as it helped. Kids these days had therapists and coming out parties and support groups and all those stories about parents being accepting. He’d had none of that twenty years ago when he was in high school. There weren’t any support groups for coming out in your mid-thirties. Adults were supposed to have it all figured out. Joe didn’t have anything figured out. He had Nicky, though. He had Nicky, and they could figure it out together. Now that he knew it was grief, he could talk to Nicky about it. Now it made enough sense to talk about. A glow of relief floated in his chest; just knowing what he was going through dispelled the fear and confusion.

He heard voices outside the room and shut the book. He couldn’t hide in the library all day. Time to go pretend things were normal.

The voices turned out to be Nile, Dizzy and Jay. Nile waved as Dizzy and Jay headed for the office. 

“Hi Joe!” Nile greeted him.

“Hey Nile,” Joe replied, smiling and hoping it looked real. He needed to do something to get himself through the rest of the shift. Nicky had pointed out that Joe needed to praise people as a way to heal his brothers’ constant ridicule and rejection. That might cheer him up. Nile was easy to praise. “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever told you what a great friend you are. Not just to Nicky, I’m pretty sure you saved Nicky’s life and sanity in Italy, but to me too. This art class is the best. Thanks. You’re a good friend, thanks.”

Nile looked taken aback for a second, then that glorious smile burst out all over her face. “You’re pretty great yourself, Joe. This is the happiest I’ve ever seen Nicky, and I love having someone to geek out with about art.”

Joe laughed.

Nile’s expression turned serious. “Can I ask you something?”

“Yeah, anything you need.” 

“I don’t know how serious you guys are yet, but please don’t take Nicky away from me. He probably hasn’t ever told you, because Nicky never repeats anything, but I’m asexual and aromantic. I’m never going to fall in love and pair off. I gotta have friends; friends are my everything. Nicky is really important to me. I know you love each other, and I’ll never try and come between that, but I need him too.”

Yeah, Joe needed a second to come back from that. He had been thinking about talking to Nicky about moving in together. Nile was so beautiful and had such a vibrant personality that he’d assumed she was living with Nicky to help him get established in the United States, and she could move on in a heartbeat to someone who would worship the ground she walked on.

“Okay, yeah,” Joe finally came up with. Not eloquent, more of a placeholder until they could have a real conversation. He reached out and hugged her, then jumped back. “Wait, are hugs okay?”

“I do hugs once I know someone well enough. Don’t worry about it, Joe, you’re on the hug list,” Nile said with a laugh.

Nile came into his arms then, and Joe held her. “We’ll talk more about this, okay?”

“Okay,” Nile agreed. “I’m gonna go to work now.” She slapped him on the shoulder and walked off, turning around once to grin at him again.

* * *

The call came in about 7:00 p.m. “Fire at 78 Cove Street. Five-story apartment building. Attic fire. Nonconfined. Flames visible from the roof. Evacuation ongoing.” 

Shit, everyone was going to be at home. They’d have a bitch of a time with the evacuation.

Within forty-five seconds of the alarm, Joe, Booker, Merrick and Keane were in their turnout gear and Keane was pulling the fire truck out of the garage, lights flashing. Andy was already en route in a rescue truck to check in with Incident Command. Joe heard the all-call go out for ambulances and knew Nicky and Nile would be on their way, along with the two other fire stations and EMS crews that were being scrambled to the scene.

Keane pulled up to the burning building. Joe blocked out the chaos of the police closing the street and those goddamned news trucks to focus on the job. High Street Station already had hoses deployed; South Station’s ladder truck was pulling up; Andy was at incident command - the fancy name for the guy with the building blueprints on a laptop and a walkie talkie. Ambulances poured into the street and Joe searched until he saw Ambulance 806. Nicky was here. Instructions came through to the lieutenant’s station in their engine.

“We’re on search and rescue,” Merrick said. “The fire is concentrated in the east end of the building right now but is spreading.”

Keane opened the tool compartment and handed them the pickaxes and claw tools they could use to break down doors and tear apart walls. 

Joe accepted the axe and halligan from Keane. Andy reached past Joe for the next set of forcible entry tools and started briefing their team on the job. “There are fire stops in the attic. The fourth and fifth floors have the larger apartments. The second and third floors have twice the number of apartments as the upper floors. The ADA apartments on the ground floor have already been cleared. Merrick, you and Booker take the third floor and work your way down the second floor. Joe, clear the fourth floor. Keane and I will take the top floor.”

Double the manpower on the third floor with the most people, and the fifth floor that was most critical for time. Joe was on his own. He spared a glance to look towards Ambulance 806, but with all the people and activity, he couldn’t see Nicky. 

The five of them ran towards the burning building, the roar of a fire muffled through his hood and helmet. He heard a burst of static over his radio, the words too muffled by the ambient noise for Joe to understand them. Their radios weren’t always that useful - though the three blast evacuation alarm always got through.

Joe exited the stairwell at the fourth floor, tools over his shoulder. He started clearing apartments. Most people fleeing a fire didn’t lock their doors, so he didn’t have to break down the first couple doors to make sure nobody was inside. He ran through the apartment, shouting that there was a fire, opening every door, looking in every closet and under the beds. Some people panic when they hear the alarm and try to hide rather than run, especially kids and the neurodivergent. Joe found a tiny dog whining under a couch and took a second to run back to the stairwell and toss it in before going on to the next apartment.

The third apartment had a locked door. Joe yelled and banged and then slammed the claw into the door and broke the entire doorknob off. The door swung open on its hinges, the locked doorknob still attached to the wall.

“Fire!” he shouted. “Anyone here?”

The air was barely beginning to mist with smoke. Joe was dripping with sweat, but that was more from effort and adrenaline. He made his way through the apartment, opening doors and checking closets. 

When he opened the door to the bedroom and saw the guy sitting on his bed, it startled him. He was in his 60s, a big, solid guy - too big for Joe to easily drag him out of the building. It would be better if he could get him to cooperate and leave under his own power. Anyone who sat behind a locked door when the fire alarm was blaring was clearly not alright. Joe estimated that he had a few minutes before the situation became critical.

“Sir, the building is on fire.”

“I know.”

“Sir, can I help you out of the building?” Joe asked.

“I’d rather just stay here, if you don’t mind. You should go. I don’t want you to get hurt.” The man hunched his shoulders a bit. He hadn’t looked at Joe at all.

“What’s your name?” Joe asked. He had most of a floor to still clear out; this needed to go fast.

“Funny question, that.” The man swallowed so hard that Joe could see his Adam’s apple bobbing from across the room. “I think I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you my name. My name is Sarah.”

Joe paused, adrenaline pumping while his mind started putting pieces together.

“I’ve never said that to anyone before. But if I’m going to die, I want at least one person to know that my real name is Sarah.”

“Ma’am, I’m sorry I called you sir.”

“You’re polite. I know I look like an ugly old man, but really I’m an ugly old woman. I’m okay with dying. You should go help someone else.” Sarah sat very quietly, and a tear dripped off her chin.

“Sarah, I don’t want you to die. I want you to come with me.”

“It will be easier on my family if I stay here.”

“I don’t care if it’s easier for your family. I’ve got a job to do, and that’s to get you out of this building. You know what? I’m gay, and my family is never going to accept that either. But I’ve got a boyfriend now, for the first time in my life. I’m thirty-six years old and he’s my first boyfriend. I’ve been dating him for five months now. He’s a paramedic; he’s out there with an ambulance. He watched me run into this burning building and, swear to God, I want him to watch me run back out too. So if you don’t want to leave, then I’m gonna sit down right next to you on the bed and guilt trip your ass about my boyfriend hoping for me to run out of this building. Because I’m gonna sit here until you agree to come with me.” Joe sat down on the bed.

“You’re going to get hurt if you stay,” Sarah insisted.

“Yeah, I know that. My boyfriend’s name is Nicky. You want to break Nicky’s heart? You want him to wonder why I’m stuck in a burning building? Don’t do that to Nicky.” Joe figured if Nicky was here, he would say exactly the right thing to convince Sarah of her self-worth and she would agree to leave the building because she knew she was worthy of respect and love. Joe did not have that kind of finesse. “He’s with ambulance 806. Once you’re out of the building, you go find him and tell him I’m alright and he shouldn’t worry about me.”

Sarah was giving him an incredulous look. “You manipulative little shit.”

“Yep, I am a manipulative little shit.” Anger was better than hopelessness. Joe was making progress. “You should go tell my boyfriend that.”

Sarah clenched her fists. Then she picked up a pillow and whacked Joe in the helmet. “Fine. You cheeky bastard.”

“Great. Any pets here? I don’t want to leave your cat behind.”

“Oh my god, get the hell out of my apartment.” Sarah grabbed Joe by the bicep and hauled him off the bed.

“I’ll take that as a no. What about your neighbors? Anyone disabled I should know about?” Joe jogged through the apartment towards the door, pulling Sarah along.

“Janci in 408 broke her leg and is on crutches.”

Impressive. Most people don’t know their neighbors. 

“If I leave you in the stairwell, will you leave the building? I don’t want you hiding out anywhere,” Joe said. “Don’t lie to a firefighter, ma’am.”

“I want your name, station and badge number. I’m going to come yell at you when this is all over.”

Joe gave her his name, station and badge number. “Let me know when you’re coming and I’ll bake cookies.” 

Joe pushed Sarah through the door to the stairwell and watched until he saw her headed down before he went back to the corridor. Out the stairwell window, he could see smoke billowing, and the glow of open flames. Attic fires were typically caused by faulty wiring. Because there weren’t heat sensors or smoke detectors in attics, they could spread far before the alarms in the lower floors were triggered. Or someone saw smoke and flames on the roof and called the fire department. He estimated he’d been in the building for more than twenty minutes. It could take hours to get a structural fire under control. The radio crackled with someone from South Station requesting a medevac chair. Joe might need one of those, depending on how mobile Janci was.

Apartment 408 was empty. Janci was nowhere to be found. Good.

The smoke was getting thicker now, though Joe could still see the walls. He fastened the air tank line to his mask and moved on to the next apartment. Empty.

A tremor shook the building. The radio crackled. “Partial roof collapse. Fire is uncontained.”

Shit. Once the roof was gone, the possibility of structural collapse went way up.

The next voice on the radio was Andy’s. “Old Guard, fifth floor is clear.”

That meant Keane and Andy would head to the fourth floor. 

After three clear apartments, Joe found a yellow cockatiel. He set the cage in the stairwell and went back to look for more humans. The next apartment had the standard entryway and living room he’d seen a dozen times already, but the bedrooms were stacked nearly to the ceiling with paper and cardboard boxes. A hoarder. Shit. 

“Who’s here?” Joe yelled. He’d only encountered one other hoarder as a firefighter and they’d had to literally drag him out of the burning house. After checking every closet and under all the furniture, Joe realized he’d lucked out. The hoarder either wasn’t home or had been willing to evacuate when the fire alarms first went off.

In the corridor, the smoke was thick enough that Joe was crawling now to stay beneath it. He checked in with Andy. Keane was clearing another apartment. They had six apartments left on this floor. With all three of them working, they cleared it in ten minutes and headed for the stairwell, where Joe picked up the cockatiel cage. The bird was huddled on the bottom of the cage, poofy with distress, but it wasn’t feet up, so Joe hoped it could hang on a few more minutes.

“Third level?” Joe asked.

“Cleared,” Andy said. “Joe, get the bird out of here and meet us on the second level.”

On the ground floor, Joe didn’t need to crawl below the smoke anymore. He saw a man in a sweatshirt evacuating the building and handed off the birdcage to him. His radio crackled with the news that the fire was 20% contained and spreading to the lower floors. The ground floor was eerily calm - Joe couldn’t hear flames roaring or the spray of the water. He turned back towards the west stairwell when movement caught his eye. The door to the east stairwell was closing. Either a heat draft had opened the heavy door or someone had headed up those stairs. There were still tenants in the building. Firefighters hoped that people would evacuate when told to do so, but some lingered. The man in the sweatshirt who took the birdcage should have been out of the building thirty minutes ago. Sarah might have changed her mind about leaving. If you thought you saw someone, chances are you saw someone.

Joe ran over to the east stairwell, yanked the door open and shouted. “Hello? Is anyone there?” He held his breath and heard what sounded like footsteps. “Get out of the building!” he yelled, and headed up the stairs at a dead run. 

He caught up to her on the second floor landing and latched an arm around her waist, pulling her backwards and off her feet. The woman was smaller than Sarah. The smoke was thick and hazy. She was already coughing even as she struggled against Joe’s arm around her stomach.

“The building’s on fire and we’re leaving!” 

“My art studio! I was working on a commission!” she cried out.

Joe was halfway down the stairs already, dragging the young woman. “It’s not worth your life, miss.”

“It is my life,” she insisted. “I just need a second. Please!”

“Which floor?” Joe asked.

“The fifth.”

“It’s already gone. The roof collapsed.”

She stopped trying to wriggle out of his grasp at that, which made it easier to drag her down the rest of the stairs. Joe turned to open the crash bar of the fire door with his butt. The door didn’t move. He let go of the woman and rammed the door with his shoulder and hip together. Nothing.

“Is it locked?” the woman asked.

“No.” He didn’t bother with the explanation. The door frame was distorting and there wasn’t enough heat down here to cause that. The wall was unsound and shifting fast enough to jam the door just a few seconds after they’d both opened it to run in. Without a roof, with the extreme heat of a fire, walls became unstable. They were trapped in the stairwell and the whole thing might come down on top of them.

“Mayday, Old Guard, east stairwell, mayday,” Joe said into his lapel mic.

“Mayday? Does that mean we’re in trouble?”

Behind his air mask, Joe rolled his eyes. Then he backed up a couple steps and got a running start at the door, slamming into it with all his strength and weight. It cracked open about twelve inches. Joe shoved his rescuee through the crack. His air tank got caught; he could squirm enough to maneuver his body through the crack, but not that bulky air tank. He figured he had 15 yards to the front door, and if he left his air tank behind, he could make it in a few seconds. The smoke on the ground level still wasn’t too bad. He disconnected the line to the mask, unbuckled the straps and shrugged the air tank off his back, then realized the woman was watching him instead of running for her life.

The three blasts of the evacuation alarm pierced the smoke-filled air. 

“Get out of the building, ma’am!” he bellowed at her.

“I didn’t want to just leave you behind!” she protested. 

Joe grabbed the woman by the arm, propelling her towards the front door. He felt, rather than heard, the rumble as the wall collapsed. He pushed the woman ahead of him until he saw debris start to fall. He locked an arm around the woman’s midsection, yanking her back against him as he fell to his knees in a crouch, hoping to shield her with his body. More debris hit his helmet and his back as he curled around her. Then it was dust and not smoke that made him wish he still had his air tank as wreckage collapsed on him.

When the debris fall stopped, Joe shifted until he realized his left leg was caught under something. Shock and adrenaline kept the pain at bay. He used his right arm to push himself off the woman he’d pinned beneath him in the wreckage. Both of them coughed, but they weren’t entirely buried.

“You alright?”

“I’m stuck,” she answered.

“Me too. You bleeding anywhere?”

“I can’t tell. What about you?”

She was polite, anyway.

“I can’t tell either. Hold still, okay?”

“Shouldn’t we try to get out of here before we burn to death?” she suggested.

“Hold still. It sets off my distress signal,” Joe explained. “We’re not getting out of here without help.” The mayday call from the stairwell would have given the Old Guard his general position. His distress signal would do the rest, faster and more accurately than a radio call would. The manual switch for his alarm was attached to his mask line, which was swinging free somewhere to his left, where he couldn’t reach it because his left arm was caught under something too. He was counting on the failsafe to work.

Sure enough, after 30 seconds of holding still, the piercing beeps filled the air around him. The radio crackled to life.

“Fireman down!”

“Old Guard - distress call.”

“Last known location - east stairwell. Who’s in proximity?”

“Help is on the way,” he told the young woman.

Within a few more seconds, Joe saw two sets of steel-toed firefighter boots, and could both feel and hear the debris being moved off of him.

“Joe!”

“Andy! I’ve got a woman here.”

Something behind him shifted and Joe could move his left leg again. Or not. 

“I’ll take Joe.” 

That was Keane’s voice.

Andy reached down and helped pull the woman out from under Joe and got her to her feet. She hobbled with Andy towards the front door.

Keane hauled Joe to his feet, which lasted about a millisecond before Joe collapsed. Something was very wrong with his left leg. Keane yanked on Joe’s arm, and with a twist and lurch, draped Joe over his shoulders.

“Ow! Shit! Fuck!” Joe swore as he bounced with Keane’s gait.

“You’re welcome,” Keane answered. 

The dust in his mask wasn’t clearing, and he struggled to unbuckle it as Keane carried him out of the building and into the surreal lighting of the night bathed in the orange glow of the fire and the white glare and red flicker of emergency lights. Joe got the mask off his face in time to see them pass an ambulance crew that was waving at them. He had a very limited field of vision, slung over Keane’s shoulders as he was, so he couldn’t even see what was happening when Keane stopped and then turned to dump Joe off his shoulders. Hands guided him to sit on a stretcher.

“I don’t like you, but I trust you to take care of him,” Keane said bluntly.

“Same.”

That was Nicky’s voice. 

Someone took Joe’s helmet off and pulled the protective hood off his head. “Dammit, Joe, that mayday scared us to death,” Nile said.

“You heard that?” Joe asked.

That muscle in Nicky’s cheek twitched. He was unfastening Joe’s jacket, checking his pulse, shining a light in Joe’s eyes, doing a thousand things at once. Behind Nicky, Joe could see the burning building, partially collapsed, and Keane running towards the engine. Nicky pressed him down to the stretcher, fastened the safety straps and talked medical jargon at Nile as they loaded him into the ambulance. That was how Joe found out he had a compound fracture on his lower left leg. Shit, that was going to hurt like a bitch once the adrenaline wore off.

Nicky started an IV while Nile drove them away from the scene, giving the ER a heads up on their ETA and condition of their patient. Joe was the patient. That was weird. He’d never been injured on the job before, other than bruises and things that didn’t need to be treated at a hospital.

“Lucky you were still here,” Joe said. He wanted Nicky to say something and stop looking like death’s mask.

Nicky didn’t say anything.

“Most people just needed oxygen for the smoke inhalation,” Nile said from the driver’s seat. “We gave oxygen to a bird. Can you believe that?”

“The little yellow cockatiel? Was it alright?” Joe asked.

“Sure, yeah, the little thing perked right up and squawked at us,” Nile said. “A Red Cross volunteer took it to try and find the owner.”

“Did you meet Sarah?” Joe asked.

“Not that I recall,” Nile said. “We didn’t ask names.”

“I told Sarah about Nicky. I thought maybe she would come find you.” Joe was all set to tell the story about Sarah, but Nicky didn’t look like he was in the mood to hear a story right now. Nicky was looking scary. Normally, Nicky seemed fairly mild-mannered, and that might have been why Joe had never really noticed before that Nicky could look like a serial killer. Honestly, streak a little blood on his cheeks and give him a knife and no one would want to meet Nicky in a dark alley.

“Nicky?” 

Nicky turned that look on Joe and Joe shrank back on the stretcher. Nicky was _terrifying._

“I’m okay, Nicky?”

“Do you know what it was like to watch you run into a burning building and then hear your voice on that mayday call right before the wall collapsed?” 

Joe got the definite impression that was a rhetorical question and there was no good way to answer it.

“I’m giving you morphine,” Nicky said.

His leg must look terrible. The IV line was in his right arm, so Joe checked his left arm, which had also been caught under rubble when the wall collapsed. He was still wearing his protective gloves. No blood that he could see. He tried to make a fist and then decided that was a very bad idea.

“Stop that, Joe, wait for x-rays,” Nicky scolded him.

“I’m sorry, Nicky.”

Nicky’s expression morphed from dangerous serial killer to child looking at favorite stuffed animal. Probably not even Joe’s mother had ever looked at him with such adoration. Nicky set gentle fingers on his face and then very cautiously set his forehead to Joe’s. “Don’t you ever do that again.”

Joe could not promise that. He sniffed. Nicky kissed the tip of his nose.

Nile pulled up to the ER ambulance bay and a nurse opened the ambulance door. Nicky gave Dr. Kozak a rundown on Joe’s vitals and the assessment of his injuries as he half-ran with the stretcher into the trauma room. Nothing life-threatening, but he was going to need surgery to set the bone in his leg. Nicky didn’t think his hand was as bad, so that was positive.

Another doctor joined Dr. Kozak in the trauma bay and the ER team transferred Joe from the stretcher to the hospital bed. The clarity of the adrenaline was giving way to the general fog of the morphine. That scared him. Joe wanted to remain awake and in control.

“Can you tell me your name?” the other doctor asked, shining a light to check Joe’s pupils.

“Yusuf al-Kaysani but everyone calls me Joe.” 

“Nice to meet you Joe. I’m Dr. Green, and we’re going to take good care of you. We’ve got him, Nicky, step back,” Dr. Green said.

“Nicky!” Joe yelled. He couldn’t see Nicky anymore.

“Joe is Nicky’s boyfriend,” Dr. Kozak said as she took a pair of scissors to the glove on Joe’s left hand.

“He is?” Dr. Green looked up. “Huh. Okay. Any other family he wants you to call?”

“I’ll call his mother once there is something to say,” Nicky said.

“He can stay, right doc? He can stay? Nicky can stay?” Joe was frantic, the morphine edging in and taking away his control. His leg was throbbing now, feeling five times its normal size.

Joe was vaguely aware of a nurse cutting through his pants to expose his left leg. Dr. Kozak kept her face carefully blank as she looked at it.

“We’ll need to get him up to the OR for his leg,” Dr. Kozak said. “Call and tell them we’re on our way.”

What if they sent Nicky back to work while Joe was in surgery? “Nicky! He can stay with me, right? Nicky! He’s my boyfriend!” Joe shouted, hanging on with everything he had left to make sure he wouldn’t be left alone in the hospital. Damn the morphine. It was coating his thoughts with fuzz and the fuzzier things got, the scarier this whole situation was. His mind grabbed onto the only thing that mattered anymore. “He’s my boyfriend! Nicky! Where’s Nicky?”

“Nicky, get over here and calm him down,” Dr. Green ordered. “Joe, I need you to hold still.”

Dr. Green traded places with Nicky, giving instructions about what to feed into Joe’s IV line.

Nicky set the back of his hand to Joe’s cheek. “Sono qui, amore, sono qui.”

“Stay with me! Nicky?” What if they made Nicky leave him? “He’s my boyfriend! Okay? He has to stay with me! He’s my boyfriend!”

Why were people smiling? Joe was terrified. They were wheeling the hospital bed out of the trauma bay and onto an elevator, with four people walking alongside him and smiling at him like he was a puppy. Nicky had a hand on Joe’s right shoulder, talking to him in Italian that Joe didn’t understand, except for words like ‘tesoro’ and ‘amore.’ Joe couldn’t hold his hand because of the IV line. Damn that IV line. He should pull it out so he could hold Nicky’s hand. But his left hand didn’t work and he didn’t have any other way to pull the IV line out of his right hand. He lifted his left hand into his line of sight and stared at it in confusion. Something was very wrong, but he couldn’t figure out what. “Nicky?”

“Your boyfriend is going to stay with you,” Dr. Kozak assured him. “He’ll be there in the recovery room when you wake up.”

“Promise? He’s my boyfriend! Nicky is my boyfriend!”

Joe didn’t stop telling everyone that Nicky was his boyfriend until the general anesthetic took hold and knocked him out.

* * *

As promised, Nicky was with Joe in the recovery room. Joe blinked awake for the pleasure of listening to Nicky’s baritone voice speaking Italian at him. It filled the room with warmth and safety and Joe gazed at Nicky in dopey adoration. The nurse kept reassuring Joe that Nicky could absolutely stay with him. It turned out that Joe and Nicky’s relationship was now famous throughout the entire hospital and the people who had witnessed Joe’s boyfriend speech in person were minor celebrities who were expected to reenact it at every possible opportunity. 

Nicky seemed to think that was fine, so Joe just went with it.

Nile brought Nicky a duffel bag with clothes, a book and a laptop, and Nicky moved into Joe’s hospital room. When Joe tried to insist it wasn’t necessary, Nicky just gave him a sad look and asked if Joe would leave him if their positions were switched. That was the end of that argument.

His left leg and hand were bandaged and casted, but the risk now was undetected internal injuries. The hospital insisted on keeping Joe for two days for observation. Andy visited long enough to turn it into an order. The whole crew came by. Joe’s room filled with cards, flowers and bags of Cheetos from Booker. His favorite card was Nile’s, because she drew it herself. It was silly - a cartoon version of him stood in front of a burning building with the caption: Hero and Heartthrob. Joe was pretty sure the card was to tease Nicky as much as it was to reassure him. It had hearts all over it.

The news segment about Joe’s injury was racking up views on YouTube because a news cameraman had gotten a great shot of Keane staggering out of the building with Joe over his shoulders. The building was a total loss, but other than smoke inhalation, Joe was the only person injured. A reporter found out about the cockatiel, and for a while everyone thought Joe had gotten hurt rescuing the bird. Then the artist from the stairwell contacted the news station with the truth. It looked like she was going to get some commission work from the publicity, so Joe was happy about that. No one told her that Joe was taking an art class, which was a relief. He really didn’t need that on the news.

An intrepid reporter interviewed Keane, and it was clear Keane enjoyed that as much as he enjoyed talking to little kids on field trips. Merrick took over to talk about teamwork, and was clearly miffed that he hadn’t been in on the rescue.

Sarah didn’t show up on the news. She sent Joe a get-well card and thanked him. Joe got a chance to tell Nicky the story. Nicky was indignant that she’d called him a ‘manipulative little shit’ but Joe insisted she said it fondly, which mollified Nicky a little bit. He probably should have left that part out.

Nicky talked to Joe’s mom. Joe had had the very bad timing to get injured on the same day his younger sister had her first baby. Joe found out he was an uncle (again) by listening in on Nicky’s half of the conversation. He got very excited and Nicky had to shush him to continue the conversation.

“Don’t worry, we will take good care of him. Joe will come home with me and my housemate. She’s a paramedic too. Her name is Nile. Yes, she’s friends with Joe. Yes, very good friends. They are taking an art class together. We cook together all the time. She will be back to see Joe this evening. No, she’s Christian. Twenty-eight. No, never married. We all met about six or seven months ago. They’re not dating, though. She’s very kind to him, yes. He likes her very much. No, I haven’t asked her, but I am quite sure they’re not dating.”

Joe listened as Nicky answered questions about Nile and his mom heard only the things she wanted to hear. Nicky changed the subject to explain everything the doctors had said about Joe and how he would need physical therapy, but not any more surgeries. The physical therapist had already come by and said they were waiting for the swelling to go down in his hand, and he should stay off his ankle for at least three weeks before they would give him a walking cast. 

At last, Nicky handed Joe the phone and he reassured his mom that he was just fine and of course she should stay to help take care of Noor and her new baby.

“I’ll call when you’re feeling better and you can tell me more about Nile. I’m happy for you, Joe,” his mom said, before ending the call.

“That’s going to get weird,” Joe said.

“We’ll talk to Nile about it,” Nicky said. “Is anyone from your family coming?”

“My little brother will come visit in a few days.” 

Joe had gotten texts from all the men in the family. His older brothers said nice things, which was better than getting teased about having a wall fall on him. Joe’s dad couldn’t deal with hospitals, so there was never any option that his dad would come. The time Joe broke his arm on a playground as a child when his mom wasn’t home, his dad put him in the car, not to go to the ER, but to go to the store to find his mom so she could take him to the ER. His dad couldn’t even deal with nosebleeds. Joe had a very traditional family where the women were in charge of taking care of people. Since Noor and his mom couldn’t come, Joe was on his own.

Or not. Nicky poured him some juice and asked if he was in any pain.

“I’m really glad you’re here, Nicky.”

Nicky put the back of his hand to Joe’s cheek and smiled at him.

Joe was pretty sure that the painkillers weren’t the only reason he felt like he was floating.

* * *

Once the hospital said Joe didn’t have internal injuries, Nicky took him home. Nicky and Nile brought some of Joe’s things over to their house, and settled Joe onto the couch with things like juice and books and the tv remote in easy reach. The second time Nicky was going to take a day off to stay home with him, Joe persuaded him to go to work.

“My brother will be here in a couple hours. I can get to the bathroom on my own, and Aaron can get us lunch. Don’t waste your vacation days,” Joe insisted.

Nile wound her braids into a bun. “It might be easier for Joe to see his brother without you around.” 

Even though that was true, it hurt Joe to see how Nicky’s face fell at Nile’s remark.

“If he stays until our shift’s over, text me and tell me where we’re at in our relationship,” Nile said to Joe. “Let me know if I need to kiss you hello or something like that.”

Nile had agreed to pretend she was dating Joe, but she hadn’t been very enthusiastic about it. Something about lies making things worse in the long run. Joe knew that his mom would have very specifically told Aaron to find out everything he could about Joe and Nile. Joe had spent a sleepless night wondering if he really could mislead his family that much. If Joe told Aaron that he was dating Nile, she was going to get sucked into his family in a major way. Maybe for some families, you could fake a relationship once a year at a holiday party and be done. But in Joe’s family, any hint of a serious relationship would bring out both sisters-in-law, Aaron’s fiancée, his mother, sister, two grandmothers and six aunts plus a few cousins to check out Nile as a possible member of the al-Kaysani family. Joe had one Christian cousin-in-law who would probably be overjoyed about the possibility of Nile marrying Joe, and he just couldn’t stand the thought of telling her that he’d only pretended to date Nile. Plus, he couldn’t put Nile through that.

But if he told Aaron the truth, it could be the last time he saw him.

Nicky kissed Joe good-bye and left for work. For the first time since his injury, Joe was alone. He scrolled through his phone and liked all the new photos of his newborn niece, texted Booker to thank him for the Cheetos, replied to Quynh that he was letting Nicky take care of him, and texted his mom the requested photo of his bandaged foot and hand.

His brother texted from a gas station to say he was an hour away. Joe lived a three hour drive away from the rest of his family. Yes, if he’d looked harder, he might have found a job closer to them, but perhaps the need for distance from his family had asserted itself years earlier than he’d suspected. If he was seeing them every week, would he ever have found the courage to date Nicky? Probably not.

No matter what happened, he was still three hours away from them, and they couldn’t cause him real problems. He would have a job and an apartment and friends no matter what his family did. He would be fine. Just fine.

There was no reason to be this scared of a visit from his brother. 

When Aaron finally arrived, Joe texted him to let himself in. He could maneuver around on one crutch with his one good hand, but he didn’t trust himself to balance well enough to open the door at the same time. Instead, he waved from where he was sitting on the couch with his leg propped up on the coffee table.

Aaron’s ear-to-ear grin lit up the room, and he bent over to give Joe an awkward hug before handing him a gift bag and saying he needed to put the food in the fridge. Of course his mom had sent food, of course she had.

“We’re having kebabs and flatbread for lunch. Mom said to remind you that hamburgers will make you fat,” Aaron said from the kitchen.

“I might have to remember that now that I can’t work out three hours a day,” Joe called back. 

“Show-off,” Aaron replied, coming back into the small living room and plopping down in the armchair.

Joe unloaded the gift bag. His mom had sent a puzzle and a small blue fleece blanket. 

“Where’s your puzzle board?” Aaron asked.

“This isn’t actually my house,” Joe reminded him.

“Fine. We’ll use the coffee table.”

Aaron dumped out the puzzle and the two of them talked while putting together the puzzle. It had been years since Joe helped build a puzzle, but this was just the way al-Kaysanis communicated. You built a puzzle together and talked about the important things in between asking if anyone could see a blue piece with part of a cloud on it. They started with Joe’s injury and prognosis, moved on to Aaron’s wedding plans, branched out into all the news of the extended family that Joe got over text messages but had to be repeated in person, agreed that their newborn niece had fat cheeks, discussed Aaron’s job, trashed Booker for all the teasing, compares bosses (Andy was objectively the best), gossiped about the older brother who couldn’t figure out why his wife was pissed off at him, griped about dad’s inflexibility about eating halal, and prayed together before eating lunch.

It felt good. Joe did much better with his family one at a time. In a group, they were overwhelming. There was an al-Kaysani groupthink that Joe had identified years ago - a set of assumptions and rules and roles that chafed. But one-on-one, Joe loved spending time with his family. It was just that if you invited one person without inviting everyone, someone got their feelings hurt. 

From the kitchen where Aaron was putting dishes in the dishwasher, Aaron called out, “Dad wants to know how you’re eating and Mom wants to know about Nile.”

“Tell Dad I’m eating halal enough to stay out of hell and the details aren’t any of his business.”

“I’m not repeating that to him.”

“Then tell him to ask me himself,” Joe replied. He wouldn’t. Joe had gotten past the phase where he made sure his dad knew every time he ate something that wasn’t halal just to pay him back (in a passive-aggressive way) for being such a dick about Joe liking art, but they’d never really cleared the air about it. His dad continued to nag Joe about eating halal, and Joe continued to not reassure his dad that nowadays he ate (mostly) halal. It was better than fighting about the real issues, and it kept the others in the family from expecting Joe to seek out his father’s advice and approval about anything else. 

Aaron came back to the living room. “Fine, I asked and that’s all I said I would do. I don’t care what you eat.” He plucked a card out of the display of get-well cards that Nicky had set up on a shelf. It was the one Nile had drawn, with all the hearts on it. “Is this from Nile?”

“Yes.”

Aaron looked around the room at all the art prints, the Salvador Dali clock and the sculpture replicas on the shelves. “She’s really into art, isn’t she?”

“I am too. We’re taking an art class together. Do you want to see some of my sketches?” Joe said recklessly. The easy chitchat was done. Now they were headed into the difficult territory.

“You draw?” Aaron sounded genuinely surprised.

Joe picked up his sketchpad from the end table and offered it to Aaron. Aaron took it and started looking through it, sitting back in the armchair where Joe couldn’t see which sketch he was looking at.

“Hey, these are really good. You sure drew that tree outside a lot. Good detail on the flowers. I like the shading. Wow, Joe, it’s like I can tell where the sun is in the sky just by how you shaded the flowers.”

Joe made noncommittal noises and tried not to get his hopes up. The first several pages were drawings of this house, the flowerbed and tree, done from those photos he’d taken months ago. Aaron was going to keep turning pages, and then things were going to get awkward.

“Oh, hey! Which one is Nile?” Aaron turned the sketchpad around.

“She’s on the right. The other two are Jay and Dizzy, her friends at work.”

Aaron whistled. “Gorgeous.”

“She is, but I’m not dating her.”

“Is she out of your league? Hang in there, Joe, she might take pity on you.”

“I’m not dating her.”

“Who’s this guy?” Aaron asked, continuing to turn pages.

“That’s Nicky.”

“You draw him a lot.”

“Yeah.”

“Why aren’t you dating Nile?”

“I’m not interested in dating Nile,” Joe said.

Aaron snorted in disbelief.

“Hey, Aaron, maybe don’t ask me who I’m dating. It might be better for everyone if no one ever asks me that question.”

Aaron gave him a puzzled look.

“Look at the sketchpad, and don’t ask me who I’m dating,” Joe said again. If he could say it without saying it, they could both back away from this without doing any permanent damage. Or maybe Aaron would be unexpectedly accepting. Maybe. Maybe maybe maybemaybemaybe . . .

Aaron kept turning pages - they were all Nicky now - and Joe knew the instant he figured it out because his lips pressed tightly together and he closed the sketchbook and set it on the coffee table.

“So how long until you can go back to work?” Aaron asked.

They’d already had this conversation, but they had it again. Joe focused on keeping his expression even, like he wasn’t on the brink of being completely destroyed. Weakness and vulnerability did not go over well with the al-Kaysani men. Unfortunately, Aaron was floundering and Joe wasn’t doing as well as he wished because he’d skipped the pain medication that morning. The conversation had awkward gaps but they muscled through, finishing the puzzle mostly in silence.

“If you don’t want to drive home tonight, you can stay at my place,” Joe offered in the late afternoon.

“No, I really ought to get home tonight,” Aaron said, standing up as if Joe had told him to leave.

“You don’t have to go right now. Nicky and Nile will be home soon. You could meet them,” Joe offered. Maybe if Aaron met Nicky, saw how kind he was, and how well he treated him, he could start to get used to the idea of him in Joe’s life. 

“No, I don’t want to impose. Mona will be expecting me,” Aaron said.

It wouldn’t have been an imposition, but Joe didn’t have the heart to push it any further. He put a brave face on and got up on his crutch to walk Aaron to the door. “Thanks for coming all this way to check on me.”

“Sure, you’re my brother, right? Of course I came to check on you.” Aaron said lightly.

That was encouraging enough that Joe said, “I’ll be off the crutch in time for your wedding.”

“Yeah, sure, that sounds great. Too bad you’ll be the only one there without a date.”

Joe couldn’t help the split second of blank stare before he gathered his composure again. “I guess I better get used to that.”

“Yeah, I guess you better.”

Joe leaned heavily against the wall. “What are you going to tell mom?”

“That you’re not dating Nile.”

“Okay,” Joe said.

“Take care,” Aaron said.

“Will do. Text me when you get home so I know you got there okay.”

“Sure, bro.”

The door shut behind Aaron, and Joe just stayed where he was for several long seconds before he could summon up the concentration to make his way back to the couch. He maneuvered down to the cushion. Everything hurt more than it had an hour ago. It took two tries to get the lid off the painkillers. He swallowed a pill and sat there, motionless and silent, waiting for the pain to ease.

He wished they’d had a fight instead. He wished they’d yelled and shouted at each other, and Aaron had thrown accusations and said ridiculous things. Then Joe could have fought back and defended himself. Instead, it turned out he was something to be silently swept under the rug and not spoken about. Somehow that was worse. 

He texted Nicky and Nile that his brother already left and he’d see them at the end of their shift. They worked twelve-hour shifts, so Joe had another three hours on his own. The medication dulled his thoughts, leaving them gray and quiet. Joe laid down, shaking out his mom’s blanket, which was barely big enough to cover him from waist to knees. He rubbed his thumb over the soft fleece and wondered if this was the last gift he would ever get from her.

* * *

He must have dozed off, because he woke up to Nicky kneeling next to him and lightly stroking his face.

“Have you eaten?” Nicky asked him.

“We had lunch.”

Nicky studied him, his hand cupping Joe’s face while his thumb traced Joe’s eyebrow over and over. “I’m sorry it didn’t go well.”

“It wasn’t as bad as it could have been. I’m still invited to my brother’s wedding. And he isn’t going to tell my mom anything except that I’m not dating Nile.”

Nicky nodded, expression very still. “You have something left.”

“Sometimes families get better once they have a chance to get used to the idea,” Nile said, coming to sit on the puzzle on the coffee table. “Dizzy’s family hated her for a couple years, but they’re tight now. They even said sorry.”

“Yeah, that could happen,” Joe said. “Maybe Aaron just needs some time to get used to the idea.”

They were all very quiet that evening. Joe was relieved that no one tried to cheer him up when he needed some time to process this. He got the text from Aaron saying he’d gotten home safely. He sent back a smile emoji.

Joe showed Nicky and Nile his blue fleece blanket and then realized what had happened. “Noor didn’t want to know if she was having a boy or a girl; she wanted it to be a surprise. I bet my mom made two blankets. I bet this was going to be for the baby if it was a boy.” 

If Aaron had been cool about things, Joe would have found that hilarious. As it was, he felt like an afterthought, which wasn’t fair to his mom because she wouldn’t have had time to do anything special for Joe since his injury. Besides, when she sent the blanket, she was still hoping to find out that he was dating Nile. She had sent all that halal food. That meant something. She could have kept all the food for Noor’s family. She cooked for him and packed it up and sent food with Aaron. That meant something, dammit. 

Joe looked up when Nile and Nicky both joined him on the couch on opposite sides. Nicky rubbed his arm. Nile patted his wrist just above the bandage. 

“Do you want to send a gift for the baby?” Nicky asked.

“You should draw the baby,” Nile said. “Send a portrait. You’ve got a million pictures of her.”

“Aaron was surprised I can draw,” Joe said. 

“Surprise Noor,” Nicky said. “I bet she’ll love it.”

“Look, maybe they’re not okay with you being gay, but they can learn to be okay with you being an artist. Hell, if my uncle could draw, he’d be my favorite uncle,” Nile said. “I wouldn’t care who he was banging.”

An image of his nieces and nephews begging him to draw them the way Jay and Dizzy kept asking for drawings presented itself to Joe. 

“I could draw the baby. I could draw her lying in flowers,” Joe said, ideas beginning to bubble up. “Aaron was really impressed with the flowers I drew.”

Nile handed him the sketchbook.

* * *

“It’s a cliché,” Nicky insisted crossly. “I must know how to make spaghetti sauce from scratch because I’m Italian.”

Joe and Nile exchanged a cautious look. 

Nile said it. “But Nicky, you _do_ make spaghetti sauce from scratch.”

“Not because I am Italian! Because it tastes better! And I don’t use my grandmother’s recipe that has been handed down for generations. I use one I found on the Internet.”

Nicky’s Internet recipe had been modified to the point that the person who originally posted it would not recognize it anymore. Joe sucked on the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling and hugged Nicky from behind.

“You know what you should do?” Nile said. “You should open a bottle of Prego and snip in some fresh basil and call it good. I bet they all rave about how great it is.”

Nicky turned an offended look on Nile.

“Or not,” Nile quickly added.

“Maybe they asked you to make the spaghetti sauce because they knew if I had you cooking for me here at home, I wouldn’t come to spaghetti night,” Joe suggested.

“Oh!” Nicky thought about it, patting the arms that Joe had locked around his middle. “They want you to come to spaghetti night at the fire station and they want me to help!”

“Uh, yeah, Nicky,” Nile said.

“They should have just said that,” Nicky said. He quickly replied to the text that had set off this whole incident, and then pulled out of Joe’s embrace to check the spice rack.

Spaghetti night at the fire station happened once a month. Joe had missed the last one because it had been only a few days after he was discharged from the hospital. Now he was on a walking cast and getting around just fine. 

Booker texted Joe about spaghetti night yesterday, and he was planning to go even before they’d asked Nicky to come in and cook on his day off.

“Nicky, who asked you to come make sauce?” Joe asked. They weren’t supposed to act like a couple at work. This seemed to be not only an acknowledgement, but an endorsement of their relationship.

“Andy. Why?” Nicky replied.

Joe shrugged. “Just curious.”

Ever since the frosty reaction from Aaron, Joe had been reading subtext into everything. He analyzed every text he got from his mom for clues that Aaron had told her about Nicky (he hadn’t); he read and reread all of Noor’s gushing about the baby portrait he sent for any hint that she thought drawing was pansyass (she didn’t); he held onto all the niece and nephew excitement over the drawings he’d done of them as proof that his older brothers liked the drawings too (who wouldn’t like a picture of their kid?); even his dad’s casual checks on his recovery were sucked dry of any possible hint that his dad would care about him even if he knew that Joe was gay (he could hope).

So finding out that Andy had invited Nicky to come cook sent Joe into orbit. Andy was the one who told them to keep their relationship low-key at work. Obviously, Andy had no problem with Joe and Nicky being gay, and now it looked like she was fine with them being more of a couple at work. The rules about not dating in the firefighter chain of command didn’t have to apply to the medics, and maybe Andy had worked that out with HR.

“I wish I could come be your sous chef, but I have physical therapy just before dinner,” Joe said.

“You can chop the onions now,” Nicky pointed out.

Joe chopped onions.

* * *

Later that evening, Joe pulled up in front of the Old Guard Fire Station. The physical therapy appointment had gone really well. His hand was back at 100% and the strength training to rebuild his leg muscles was progressing well. His physical therapist said he was just a few weeks away from being cleared for light duty and a return to work. He wouldn’t be able to run into burning buildings in full turnout gear, but there was plenty to do as a firefighter even on light duty. 

Joe walked in the door that led into the engine bay. The huge garage had its own smell, and he’d missed it. Everything looked so familiar - the big trucks, the equipment stashed neatly around the perimeter, the bulletin board, all the safety notices. He was just standing there, soaking it all in, when Dizzy walked into the engine bay. When she looked up and saw Joe, she shrieked. “Don’t move! We’re not ready yet!” Then she ran back into the station house.

As instructed, Joe didn’t move. In fact, he was still standing there looking around when Merrick walked in. “What are you doing? Spaghetti night is in the kitchen.”

“Dizzy told me to wait here,” Joe explained.

“Oh, right, the surprise decorations. They must still be trying to hang that banner,” Merrick said. “How’s your foot? Are you still wearing a cast?”

Joe hiked up his pant leg to show Merrick the walking cast. “It’s healing fine. I had x-rays last week.”

“Huh. We’ve decided to wait on the extra safety training until you’re back at work.”

Joe decided that Merrick was still pissed that Keane and Joe got all the credit for the rescue and he had no way to muscle himself into the spotlight. He wasn’t usually such a dick in casual conversation.

“Good to see you too, Merrick.”

Merrick gave him a puzzled look.

From behind the door to the station house, Joe heard a thunder of footsteps and then everyone under thirty burst into the engine bay - Dizzy, Jay, Lykon and Nile. Dizzy threw confetti and the other three blew on cheap New Year’s Eve noisemakers. “Welcome back! Get in here! We’re so glad to see you! How’s your leg? Oh my god look at your beard!”

Amid many noisy questions that were too chaotic to answer, Joe was ushered into the station house itself and down the hall towards the kitchen. A banner reading ‘Welcome Back Joe!’ was strung crookedly over the wall. A bigger version of Nile’s drawing from the get-well card held up one end. Joe was thankful she had left the hearts off of this version.

“Hey, Shorty!” Booker called out, and bear hugged Joe.

“Dude, he’s like six feet tall,” Nile said.

“That’s why it’s funny,” Booker said.

“You’ve got an annoying sense of humor,” Andy said to Booker while giving Joe a hug. “So good to see you, Joe. Nicky’s kept us updated. Damn, you grow a nice beard.” 

“Sit down, Joe, I’ll bring you a plate,” Lykon said.

For the first time since they started dating, Joe got to sit next to Nicky at spaghetti night. He answered questions about his leg and his physical therapy about eight times, got caught up on all the news, heard the story about the six-car pileup twice, found out they were getting a new washer and dryer, congratulated Lykon on his promotion, and assured Andy he was following all the rules from his physical therapist.

“Nicky keeps me in line,” Joe said.

“Has he had to threaten to text me and report what you’re doing?” Andy asked.

“No, why would he do that?” Joe asked.

Andy frowned and nodded. “Impressive, I thought he might need me to back him up more often.”

“Joe is a good patient,” Nicky said, with that small smile.

Joe smiled back at him.

“They’re like that all the time,” Nile announced.

Dizzy sighed happily. “I want to be sappy in love.”

Nicky’s cheeks turned pink.

Andy winked at Joe.

“Pass the garlic bread,” Merrick said.

“Say please,” Booker replied.

“I almost die for food, and let me have it!” Merrick said instead.

Everyone stopped and looked at him.

Merrick gave that long suffering sigh. “Shakespeare? As You Like It? Does no one else read the classics?”

Keane handed Merrick the basket of garlic bread along with a stony look.

“Andy, I got permission to retake my business statistics class,” Lykon said.

“Someone took the pliers out of the toolbox and if they get put back by tomorrow, no one gets hurt,” Booker said.

Dizzy and Jay burst out laughing at something Nile had said.

“I’ve got concert tickets I can’t use. Anyone want them before I give them to Joe and Nicky?” Merrick asked.

“Quynh’s here! Grab a plate! Hi Quynh!”

Quynh gave Joe a hug from behind and then fixed herself a plate of spaghetti.

Joe just sat there, twirling spaghetti onto his fork and let the chaos of the dinner table wash over him. It was funny - the Old Guard was every bit as chaotic and noisy as his family, yet it felt totally different. 

“Glad you’re back, Joe,” Booker said, getting up for more Coke. As he walked behind them, he ruffled Nicky’s hair and squeezed Joe’s shoulder. “And not just because Nicky made the spaghetti sauce from scratch tonight.”

“It’s good to be home,” Joe said. 

Nothing special happened the rest of the evening. 

It was fabulous.

* * *

Nile went to hang out with Dizzy and Jay, so Joe and Nicky drove home together after spaghetti night. 

“You seem happy,” Nicky said.

Of course Nicky noticed that the malaise that had coated Joe for the last month was gone in the glow of the Old Guard homecoming, even though everything that had ever bothered him about the fire station was still there. 

Joe grinned at him. “Keane’s a jerk, Merrick’s a dick, Booker is annoying and I like them all anyway.”

Nicky laughed. 

“It’s not personal,” Joe explained. “They’re just like that. It’s not personal.”

They rode in silence for a few minutes while Joe thought it out. “My brother Aaron is a great guy. He’s, like, the guy you call when your car breaks down at 2:00 in the morning, or you’ve got tickets to a game and want someone who will be fun to go with. He goes out of his way to help people. When a guy like that is a jerk to you, that’s personal. That hurts. When Booker thinks he’s being funny, or Merrick gets passive-aggressive, or even Keane making that shitty comment to you, that’s just how they are. It sucks, but it isn’t personal.”

“With families, it’s always personal.”

“Yeah, families hurt more.”

They’d talked a lot this past month about Joe’s grief about his family - the loss of his hope for acceptance, and the sadness that he couldn’t share his full life with them. Aaron’s visit had given some shape to Joe’s sadness. It was more real than it had been, and while that hurt more, it was also somehow easier to handle. He had an event to focus on.

They got home and got out of the car. Home. For the first couple weeks after Joe got his walking cast and the bandages came off his hand, they made up excuses for Joe to stay at Nicky and Nile’s place. There were fewer stairs; he might need something; Nicky would worry less; Joe could still use some help with errands. Then they quit making excuses and Joe just stayed. Joe couldn’t imagine living on his own again. He wanted Nicky and Nile and a home. They were going to have to talk about that at some point, but not tonight. 

Nicky had a ‘just got home’ routine that Joe had gotten acquainted with over the past month. He watched Nicky affectionately as he unloaded his pockets, hung up the car keys, straightened the stack of paper that lived on the kitchen table and put Nile’s coffee mug in the sink. Nile always left a coffee mug in the living room. Joe found it charming that Nicky never nagged her about it.

When Nicky’s routine wound down, Joe grabbed his waistband and hauled him in for a kiss. Nicky came willingly, eagerly, arms firmly around Joe and pressed tightly to him. Joe poured desire into the kiss, holding the back of Nicky’s head and bringing their hips together. They’d kissed and cuddled a lot over the past month, but Joe’s painkillers and general malaise had blocked anything further. Nicky hummed in pleasure and rucked up Joe’s shirt in the back to get a hand on bare skin.

“You’re not too tired?” Joe asked.

Nicky snorted with laughter. 

“Well, I thought it would be polite to ask!” Joe protested.

Nicky laughed as he kissed him, then laughed some more. 

Joe growled, which made Nicky laugh harder. It felt so good to feel good again. 

Within a very few minutes, they were in the bedroom, pulling at each other’s clothes and kissing any skin they could find. He bore Nicky down on the bed beneath him, unstrapping the walking boot off his cast and begrudging every extra second it took him to get his foot situated where he could ignore it and get back to Nicky. Joe was hungry for Nicky’s body and touch, the feel of him naked in Joe’s embrace and the sound of his ragged breathing. 

“It’s been too long,” Joe whispered into Nicky’s belly.

“I’m sorry, I--”

“Nicky! I wasn’t criticizing you. I’ve been the one out of commission.” 

“It’s fine, I’m sorry,” Nicky said again, his voice small.

This past month had been all about Joe - his physical injury and emotional needs. But Nicky’s self-conscious apology reminded Joe that the last time they’d had sex, it ended with both of them in tears from old pain. Joe shifted up to where he could finger Nicky’s chin. “Do you want to talk first?”

“About what?” Nicky asked cautiously.

“The last time we had sex, the night before my accident, we talked out some pretty heavy stuff. Are you at all worried about that shit Keane said? That I’ll get tired of you? Why would you let that get to you? I’m not going to get tired of you.”

Nicky gave him that deer-in-the-headlights look that meant Joe had hit a nerve.

Joe waited it out.

“When I was a teenager, that’s how it worked. I would stay with a guy until he got tired of me and passed me along to his friend. I know our relationship isn’t like that. I know that in my head. But Keane’s words still stung me in the heart.”

“Nicky,” Joe said gently, and then leaned in to kiss him softly and thoroughly, pouring as much reassurance into the kiss as he could. “I will never get tired of you, of us.”

“I know.”

“Is that why you dressed up that night? Spice things up a bit?”

Nicky nodded.

Joe considered how best to say what he needed to say. “I won’t say I didn’t like it; I did. But I don’t want you to do anything that makes you uncomfortable. I love you, Nicky, and you don’t have to wonder if I’m going to get tired of you. I’m not. At the hospital, I told everyone you were my boyfriend, but only because I didn't know a better word. You're more than that, Nicky, you're my guiding star on this uncharted path and the anchor that keeps me grounded. You're all and you're more.”

“That might be the most romantic thing anyone has ever said.”

“To you?” It sounded like Nicky hadn’t finished the sentence.

“To anyone. Not many people have said romantic things to me, Joe.”

“I’m going to fix that.”

The smile Nicky gave him was full of hopes and dreams and their future.

Joe bent to Nicky’s mouth again, overflowing with a feeling too layered to simply be called happiness. It encompassed Joe’s grief, the depths of which would still sometimes pull at him. It reached out to gather in Nicky’s pain and courage and kindness, twining them around each other and rooting in strongly enough to be a foundation for their life together. They wouldn’t simply be happy; they would be strong.

Together.


End file.
